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(         IUN    9    1961 

LEGTUEESW     ^ 


SERMONS 


Very   Rev.  THOMAS    N.   BURKE,   OP, 


TO  WHICH   13  ADDED 


IRELAND'S    CASE    STATED, 

IX  REPLY   TO   MR.  FROTJDE. 


P.  M    TIAVERTY,  NEW  YORK. 
.    P.  J.   KENEDY, 
EXCELSIOR  CATHOLIC   PUBLISHING    HOUSE, 
5  Barclay  Street,  N.  Y. 


Filtered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  In  the  year  1372.  by 
P.  M.  HAVERTY, 

lu  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington 


tm  x/rimatur, 

F.  Dominicxjs  Lil/,y, 


F.  Petrus  Sablon, 

Bedsores  Ordinis. 


80  Si$  ®vw 

THE   MOST   REV.   JOHN    MAO  HALE, 

ARCHBISHOP  OF   TUAM. 


(Llnrum  tt  bencrabile  gomcn. 


THE      GREAT     ARCHBISHOP     OF    THE     WEST 
THE   LOVER  OF  THE   POOR; 

THE  DEFENDER  OF  THE  WEAK  ; 

THE  SHIELD  OF  THE  PERSECUTED  ; 

THE     HONOR    OF     IRELAND'S     PRIESTHOOD; 

THE  JOY  AND  THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IRISH  PEOPLE  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD 

THE  FOLLOWING  PAGES  ARE  HUMBLY  AND  LOVINGLY 

jbcuiCiiteb. 


PREFACE 


&■ 


m 


FEEL  that  some  apology  is  due  to  my  readers  for 
the  appearance  of  this  book.  I  certainly  never  should 
have  permitted  the  publication  of  these  lectures  if  it 
were  in  my  power  to  prevent  it ;  but  as  parties,  strangers  to  me, 
had  announced  their  intention  of  publishing  them  in  book  form, 
for  their  own  benefit,  I  thought  it  incumbent  on  me  to  antici- 
pate this  by  publishing  the  lectures  myself.  First,  that  they 
might  have  the  benefit  of  my  own  revision  (however  hasty  and 
imperfect),  and  secondly,  because  I  considered  that  my  Order 
had  the  best,  and  in  fact,  the  only  just  title  to  any  profits  that 
might  arise  from  the  sale  of  the  book.  There  is  no  pretension 
to  anything  like  style  in  these  lectures,  as  they  are  merely,  with 
some  exceptions,  the  newspaper  reports,  hastily  revised.  If, 
however,  there  be  anything  in  them  contrary  to  the  teachings 
of  the  Catholic  Church,  that,  I  am  the  first  to  condemn  and  re- 
oudiate. 


CONTENTS. 


St.  Patrick, 9 

Funeral  Oration  on  O'Connell,      -                 34 

The  Solemn  Triduum, 46 

The  Christian  Man  the  Man  of  the  Day,       ......  62 

The  Catholic  Church  the  Mother  of  Liberty, 78 

The  Church,  the  Mother  and  Inspiration  of  Art,  -        -        -        -        -  99 

The  Groupings  of  Calvary,       ........  120 

Christ  on  Calvary,         -...--....  137 

Temperance --  160 

The  Attributes  of  Catholic  Charity, 173 

The  History  of  Ireland,  as  Told  in  Her  Ruins,  193 

The  Supernatural  Life,  the  Absorbing  Life  of  the  Irish  People,    -        -  224 

The  Catholic  Church  the  Salvation  of  Society,          -        -        -        -  238 

The  Immaculate  Conception, 261 

The  Immaculate  Conception.     Second  Sermon,       -        -        -        -  271 
The   Pope — The  Crown  which  He  Wears,  and  of  which  no   Man  can 

Deprive  Him, 287 

On  the  First  Beatitude, 309 

On  the  Second  Beatitude, 315 

The  Church,     -                 322 

The  Incarnation, 329 

Activity  of  Faith, 336 

Music  in  Catholic  Worship,          -.---.--  344 

Catholic  Education, 352 


8  Contents. 

rA«H 

The  National  Music  of  Ireland, «•  370 

The  Resurrection, 397 

The  Pope's  Tiara — Its  Past,  Present,  and  Future,         ....  4.09 

Good  Works  with  Faith  Necessary  to  Salvation,      -         -        -        -  4.31 

The  Peace  of  God, 440 

The  Exiles  of  Erin,          ...--....  453 

The  Confessional:  Its  Effect  on  Society,      ------  479 

The  Blessed  Eucharist, 500 

The  Month  of  Mary, 519 

The  Catholic  Church  the  True  Emancipator, 531 

Christian  Charity,         -         -         -         -         - 550 

The  Irish  People  in  Their  Relation  to  Catholicity,  567 

The  Catholic  Church  the  True  Regenerator  of  Society,        -        -        -  590 

The  Catholic  Church  and  the  Wants  of  Society,      ...        -  61c 

The  Divine  Commission  of  the  Church, -.  634 


Lectures   and   Sermons 


VERY    REV.  THOMAS   N.  BURKE,  O.P. 


ST.  PATRICK. 

[Delivered  in  St.  Patrick's  Cathedral,  New  York,  on  Sunday,  March  17th,  1872.J 

"  Let  us  now  praise  men  of  renown,  and  our  fathers  in  their  generation  ;  *  *  * 
these  men  of  mercy,  whose  godly  deeds  have  not  failed  ;  good  things  continue  with 
their  seed.  Their  posterity  are  a  holy  inheritance  ;  and  their  seed  hath  stood  in  the 
covenants :  and  their  children  for  their  sakes  remain  for  ever ;  their  seed  and  their 
glory  shall  not  be  forsaken.  Let  the  people  shew  forth  their  wisdom,  and  the  Church 
declare  their  praise."—  Eccles.  44. 

<*ffiffi%JE  are  assembled  to  obey  the  command  of  God  express- 
^tfVifc?  ed  in  my  text.  One  of  the  great  duties  of  God's 
Church,  to  which  she  has  ever  been  most  faithful,  is 
y  the  celebration  of  her  saints.  From  end  to  end  of  the 
year  the  Church's  saints  are  the  theme  of  her  daily  thanksgiving 
and  praise.  They  are  her  heroes,  and  therefore  she  honors 
them  ;  just  as  the  world  celebrates  its  own  heroes,  records 
their  great  deeds,  and  builds  up  monuments  to  perpetuate 
their  names  and  their  glory.  The  saints  were  the  living 
and  most  faithful  representatives  of  Christ  our  Lord,  of  his 
virtues,  his  love,  his  actions,  his  power,  so  that  He  lived  in 
them,  and  wrought  in  them,  and  through  them,  the  redemption 
of  men  ;  therefore  the  Church  honors,  not  so  much  the  saint,  as 
Christ  our  Lord  in  the  saint;  for,  in  truth,  the  wisdom  of  saintli- 
ness  which  she  celebrates,  wherever  it  is  found,  is  nothing  else, 
as  described  to  us  in  Scripture,  than  "  a  vapour  of  the  power  of 
God,  and  a  certain  pure  emanation  of  the  glory  of  the  Almighty 
God ;  *  *  *  the  brightness  of  eternal  light,  and  the  unspotted 
mirror  of  God's  majesty,  and  the  image  of  His  goodness ;    * 


io  St.  Patrick. 

and  through  nations  she  conveyeth  herself  into  holy  souls,  she 
maketh  the  friends  of  God  and  prophets."  Nor  does  the 
Church's  honor  of  the  saints  derogate  from  that  of  God,  as  some 
say;  otherwise  the  Lord,  who  is  jealous  of  His  divine  power 
and  glory,  would  never  command  us  to  praise  the  saints  as  he 
does  in  the  words  of  my  text,  and  in  many  other  parts  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures  :  "  Praise  ye  the  Lord  in  his  saints,"  "  God  is 
wonderful  in  His  saints,"  etc.,  etc.  Nay,  so  far  from  lessening 
our  love  and  praise  of  God,  the  saints  are  the  very  channel 
through  which  praise  is  most  acceptably  given  to  Him,  and  if 
the  Scriptures  command  us  to  praise  the  Lord  in  all  His  works, 
how  much  more  in  His  saints — the  masterpieces  of  nature  and 
grace  !  Let  no  one,  therefore,  suppose  that  we  are  assembled  to- 
day to  dishonor  God  by  honoring  his  saint:  let  no  one  imagine 
that  we  are  come  together  to  bless  and  praise  other  than  Our 
God  Himself,  "  the  Father  of  lights,"  "  for  every  best  and  every 
perfect  gift  "  which  He  has  given  us  through  our  great  Apostle, 
St.  Patrick.  He  was  "a  man  of  renown,"  for  his  work  and  his 
name  are  known  and  celebrated  by  all  men  ;  "  and  our  father 
in  his  generation,"  for  he  "  begat  us  to  God  by  the  Gospel." 
He  was,  moreover,  "  a  man  of  mercy,"  for,  when  he  might  have 
lived  for  himself  and  for  the  enjoyment  of  his  own  ease,  he  chose 
rather  to  sacrifice  himself,  and  to  make  his  life  cheap  and  of  no 
account  in  his  sight,  and  this  through  the  self-same  mercy  which 
brought  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  forth  from  the  bosom  of  the 
Father,  namely,  mercy  for  a  people  who  were  perishing.  His 
"  godly  deeds  have  not  failed,"  for  the  Lord  crowned  his  labors 
with  blessings  of  abundance.  "  Good  things  continue  with  his 
seed,"  for  the  faith  which  he  planted  still  flourishes  in  the  land. 
"  His  posterity  are  a  holy  inheritance,"  for  the  scene  of  his 
labors,  grown  famous  for  holiness,  obtained  among  the  nations 
the  singular  title  of  "the  Island  of  Saints."  "And  his  seed 
hath  stood  in  the  covenants,"  for  it  is  well  known  and  acknowl- 
edged that  no  power,  however  great,  has  been  able  to  move  them 
from  the  faith  once  delivered  to'  the  saints.  "  His  children  for 
his  sake  remain  forever,"  for  he  blessed  them,  as  we  read,  that 
they  should  never  depart  from  the  fold  of  the  "  one  Shepherd  " 
into  which  he  had  gathered  them,  and  his  prayer  in  heaven  has 
verified  for  1500  years  his  prophetic  blessing  on  earth.  "His 
seed  and  his  glory  shall  not  be  forsaken,"  for    '  they  are  the 


St.  Patrick.  1 1 

children  of  saints,  and  look  for  that  life  ^hich  God  will  give  to 
those  that  never  change  their  faith  from  Him."  Seeing,  there- 
fore, that  all  the  conditions  of  the  Inspired  Word  have  been  so 
strikingly  fulfilled  in  our  saint,  is  it  wonderful  that  wc  should 
also  desire  to  fulfill  the  rest  of  the  command,  "  Let  the  people 
shew  forth  His  wisdom,  and  the  Church  declare  His  praise  ?  "  I 
nropose,  therefore,  for  your  consideration — first,  the  character 
of  the  saint  himself;  secondly,  the  work  of  his  Apostleship  ;  and 
thirdly,  the  merciful  providence  of  Almighty  God  toward  the 
Irish  Church  and  the  Irish  people.  The  light  of  Christianity 
had  burned  for  more  than  four  hundred  years  before  its  rays 
penetrated  to  Ireland.  For  the  first  three  hundred  years  of  the 
Church's  existence  the  sacred  torch  was  hidden  in  the  catacombs 
and  caves  of  the  earth,  or,  if  ever  seen  by  men,  it  was  only  when 
held  aloft  for  a  moment  in  the  hands  of  a  dying  martyr.  Yet 
the  flame  was  spreading,  and  a  great  part  of  Asia,  Armenia, 
Egypt,  Spain,  Italy,  and  Gaul  had  already  lighted  their  lamps 
before  that  memorable  year  312,  when  the  Church's  light,  sud- 
denly shooting  up,  appeared  in  the  heavens,  and  a  Roman 
Emperor  was  converted  by  its  brightness.  Then  did  the  spouse 
of  Christ  walk  forth  from  the  earth,  arrayed  in  all  the  "  beauty 
of  holiness,"  and  her  "  light  arose  unto  the  people  who  were 
seated  in  darkness  and  in  the  shadow  of  death."  The  Christian 
faith  was  publicly  preached,  the  nations  were  converted,  churches 
and  monasteries  were  everywhere  built,  and  God  seemed  to 
smile  upon  the  earth  with  the  blessings  of  Christian  faith  and 
Roman  civilization.  A  brief  interval  of  repose  it  was;  and  God, 
in  His  mercy,  permitted  the  Church  just  to  lay  hold  of  society, 
and  establish  herself  amongst  men,  that  she  might  be  able  to 
save  the  world,  when,  in  a  few  years,  the  Northern  barbarians 
should  have  swept  away  every  vestige  of  the  power,  glory,  and 
civilization  of  ancient  Rome.  It  was  during  this  interval,  be- 
tween the  long-continued  war  of  persecution  and  the  first  fall 
of  Rome,  that  a  young  Christian  was  taken  prisoner  on  the  north- 
ern shores  of  Gaul,  and  carried,  with  many  others,  by  his  captors, 
into  Ireland.  This  young  man  was  St.  Patrick.  He  was  of  noble 
birth,  born  of  Christian  parents,  reared  up  with  tendercstcare,  and 
surrounded  from  his  earliest  infancy  with  all  that  could  make 
life  desirable  and  happy.  Now  he  is  torn  away  from  parents 
and  friends,  no  eye  to  look  upon  him  with  pity,  no  heart  to  feel 


12  St.  Patrick. 

for  the  greatness  of  his  misery;  and  in  his  sixteenth  year,  just 
as  life  was  opening  and  spreading  out  all  its  sweets  before  him, 
he  is  sold  as  a  slave,  and  sent  to  tend  cattle  upon  the  dreary 
mountains  of  the  far  north  of  Ireland,  in  hunger  and  thirst,  in 
cold  and  nakedness  ;  and  there  for  long  years  did  he  live,  for- 
gotten and  despised,  and  with  no  other  support  than  the  Chris- 
tian faith  and  hope  within  him.  These,  however,  failed  him  not ; 
and  so  at  length  he  was  enabled  to  escape  from  his  captivity 
and  return  to  his  native  land.  Oh,  how  sweet  to  his  eyes  and 
ears  must  have  been  the  sights  and  sounds  of  his  childhood  ! 
how  dear  the  embraces,  how  precious  the  joy  of  his  aged  mother 
when  she  clasped  to  her  "  him  that  was  dead,  but  came  to  life 
again  I"  Surely  he  will  remain  with  her  now,  nor  ever  expose 
himself  to  the  risk  of  losing  again  joys  all  the  dearer  because 
they  had  once  been  lost.  Not  so,  my  brethren.  Patrick  is  no 
longer  an  ordinary  man  ;  one  of  us.  A  new  desire  has  entered 
into  his  soul  and  taken  possession  of  his  life.  A  passion  has 
sprung  up  within  him  for  which  he  must  live  and  devote  his 
future.  This  desire,  this  passion,  is  to  preach  the  Christian  faith 
in  Ireland,  and  to  bring  the  nation  forth  "  from  darkness  into 
the  admirable  light "  of  God.  In  the  days  of  his  exile,  even 
when  a  slave  on  the  mountain-side,  he  heard,  like  the  prophet, 
a  voice  within,  him,  and  it  said,  "  Behold,  I  have  given  my  words 
in  thy  mouth.  Lo,  I  have  set  thee  this  day  over  the  nations 
and  over  kingdoms,  to  root  up  and  pull  down,  and  to  waste  and 
destroy,  and  to  build  and  to  plant.  Gird  up  thy  loins  and  arise, 
and  speak  to  them  all  that  I  command  thee."  And  when  he  was 
restored  to  his  country  and  to  those  who  loved  him,  the  same 
voice  spoke  again,  for  he  heard  in  a  dream  the  voice  of  many 
persons  from  a  wood  near  the  western  sea,  crying  out,  as  with 
one  voice,  "  We  entreat  thee,  O  holy  youth,  to  come  and  walk 
still  among  us."  "  It  was  the  voice  of  the  Irish,"  says  the  saint 
in  his  Confessions,  "  and  I  was  greatly  affected  in  my  heart." 
And  so  he  arose,  and  once  more  leaving  father  and  mother, 
houses  and  lands,  went  forth  to  prepare  himself  for  his  great 
mission.  Having  completed  his  long  years  of  preparatory  study, 
he  turned  his  face  to  Rome,  to  the  fountain-head  of  Christian- 
ity, the  source  of  all  jurisdiction  and  Divine  mission  in  the 
Church,  the  great  heart  whence  the  life-blood  of  faith  and  sound 
doctiine  flows  even  to  her  most  distant  members,  the  new  Jeru 


St.   Patrick. 


13 


salem  and  Sion  of  God,  of  which  it  was  written  of  old,  "  from 
Sion  shall  the  law  go  forth,  and  the  Word  of  the  Lord  from 
Jerusalem ;"  and  here  in  Rome  St.  Celestine  the  First  laid  his 
hands  upon  Patrick  and  consecrated  him  first  bishop  of  the 
Irish  nation. 

And  now  he  returns  to  our  shores  a  second  time ;  no  longer 
a  bondsman,  but  free,  and  destined  to  break  the  nation's  chains : 
"  You  shall  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free :" 
no  longer  dragged  thither  an  unwilling  slave  of  men,  but  drawn 
by  irresistible  love,  the  willing  slave  of  Jesus  Christ ;  no  more  a 
stripling,  full  of  anxious  fear's;  but  a  man,  in  all  the  glory  of  a 
matured  intellect,  in  the  strength  and  vigor  of  manhood,  in  the 
fullness  of  power  and  jurisdiction ;  with  mind  prepared  and 
spirit  braced  to  bear  and  brave  all  things,  and  with  heart  and 
soul  utterly  devoted  to  God  and  to  the  great  enterprise  before 
him.  Oh,  my  brethren,  what  joy  was  in  heaven  at  that  hour 
when  the  blessed  feet  of  the  Bishop  Patrick  touched  the 
shores  of  Ireland — the  ancient  "  Isle  of  Destiny."  This  was 
her  destiny  surely,  and  it  is  about  to  be  fulfilled — that  she  should 
be  the  home  and  the  mother  of  .saints — of  doctors  and  holy 
solitaries,  and  pure  virgins  and  martyrs  robed  in  white,  and  of  a 
people  acceptable  before  the  Lord.  That  the  Cross  of  Christ 
should  be  the  emblem  of  her  faith  forevermore,  of  her  faith 
and  of  her  trial,  of  her  tears  and  sorrow,  and  of  her  victory, 
"  which  conquereth  the  world."  O  golden  hour  amongst  the 
hours !  when  the  sands  of  the  Irish  shore  first  embraced  softly 
and  lovingly  the  beautiful  footprints  of  him  who  preached  peace 
and  good  things ;  when  Moses  struck  the  rock,  and  the  glisten- 
ing waters  of  salvation  flowed  in  the  desert  land ;  when  the 
"  Name,  which  is  above  all  names,"  was  first  heard  in  the  old 
Celtic  tongue,  and  the  Lord  Jesus,  entering  upon  his  new  in- 
heritance, exclaimed,  "This  is  My  resting-place  forever  and 
ever  ;  here  shall  I  dwell  because  I  have  chosen  it." 

The  conversion  of  Ireland,  from  the  time  of  St.  Patrick's  land- 
ing to  the  day  of  his  death,  is,  in  many  respects,  the  strangest 
fact  in  the  history,  of  the  church.  The  saint  met  with  no  op- 
position ;  his  career  resembles  more  the  triumphant  progress  of 
a  king  than  the  difficult  labor  of  a  missionary.  The  Gospel, 
with  its  iessons  and  precepts  of  self-denial,  of  prayer,  of  purity, 
in  a  word,  of  the  violence  which  seizes  on  heaven,  is  not  con- 


14  St.  Patrick. 

genial  to  fallen  man.  His  pride,  his  passions,  his  blindness  of 
intellect  and  hardness  of  heart,  all  oppose  the  spread  of  the 
Gospel ;  so  that  the  very  fact  that  mankind  has  so  universally 
accepted  it,  is  adduced  as  a  proof  that  it  must  be  from  God. 
The  work  of  the  Catholic  missionary  has,  therefore,  ever  been, 
and  must  continue  to  be,  a  work  of  great  labor  with  apparently 
small  results.  Such  has  it  ever  been  amongst  all  the  nations ; 
and  yet  Ireland  seems  a  grand  exception.  She  is,  perhaps,  the 
only  country  in  the  world  that  entirely  owes  her  conversion  to 
the  work  of  one  man.  He  found  her  universally  Pagan.  He 
left  her  universally  Christian.  She  is,  again,  the  only  nation  that 
never  cost  her  apostle  an  hour  of  sorrow,  a  single  tear,  a  drop 
of  blood.  She  welcomed  him  like  a  friend,  took  the  Word  from 
his  lips,  made  it  at  once  the  leading  feature  of  her  life,  put  it 
into  the  blood  of  her  children  and  into  the  language  of  her 
most  familiar  thoughts,  and  repaid  her  benefactor  with  her 
utmost  veneration  and  love.  And  much,  truly,  had  young 
Christian  Ireland  to  love  and  venerate  in  her  great  Apostle. 
All  sanctity,  coming  as  it  does  from  God,  is  an  imitation  of  God 
in  man.  This  is  the  meaning  of  the  word  of  the  Apostle. 
"  those  whom  he  foreknew  and  predestined  to  be  made  con- 
formable to  the  image  of  His  Son,  the  same  He  called,  aad 
justified,  and  glorified."  Conformity  to  the  image  of  God  is 
therefore  Christian  perfection  or  sanctity,  "  the  mystery  which 
was  hidden  from  eternity  with  Christ  in  God."  But  as  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  "  In  whom  dwelt  the  fullness  of  the  God- 
head corporally,"  is  an  abyss  of  all  perfections,  so  do  we  find 
the  saints  differing  one  from  another  in  their  varied  participa- 
tions of  His  graces  and  resemblance  to  His  divine  gifts,  for  so 
"  star  differeth  from  star  in  glory."  Then,  amongst  the  apostles, 
we  are  accustomed  to  think  and  speak  of  the  impulsive  zeal  of 
Peter,  the  virginal  purity  of  John,  etc.,  not  as  if  Peter  were  not 
pure,  or  John  wanting  in  zeal,  but  that  where  all  was  the  work 
of  the  Spirit  of  God,  one  virtue  shone  forth  more  prominently, 
and  seemed  to  mark  the  specific  character  of  sanctity  in  the 
saint.  Now,  amongst  the  many  great  virtues  which  adorned 
the  soul  of  Ireland's  Apostle,  and  made  him  so  dear  to  the 
people,  I  find  three  which  he  made  especially  his  own,  and 
these  were,  a  spirit  of  penance,  deepest  humility,  and  a  devour- 
ing zeal  for  the  salvation  of  souls.     A  spirit  of  penance.     It  is 


St.  Patrick.  15 

remarkable,  and  worthy  of  special  notice  in  these  days  of  self- 
indulgence  and  fanciful  religions,  how  practical  the  gospel  is. 
It  is  pre-eminently  not  only  the  science  of  religious  knowledge, 
but  also  of  religious  life,  it  tells  us  not  only  what  we  are  to 
believe,  but  also  what  we  are  to  do.  And  now,  what  is  the 
first  great  precept  of  the  gospel  ?  It  is  penance.  My  brethren, 
"do  penance,  for  the  kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand."  And  when, 
on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  the  Prince  of  the  apostles  first  raised 
up  the  standard  of  Christianity  upon  the  earth,  the  people 
"  when  they  heard  these  things  had  compunction  in  their  hearts, 
and  said  to  Peter,  and  to  the  rest  of  the  Apostles,  What  shall 
we  do,  men  and  brethren  ?  and  Peter  said  to  them,  do  penance, 
and  be  baptized,  every  one  of  you."  This  spirit  of  penance 
was  essentially  Patrick's.  His  youth  had  been  holy  ;  prevented 
from  earliest  childhood  by  "  the  blessings  of  sweetness,"  he  had 
grown  up  like  a  lily,  in  purity,  in  holy  fear  and  love.  Yet  for 
the  carelessness  and  slight  indiscretions  of  his  first  years,  he  was 
filled  with  compunction,  and  with  a  life-long  sorrow.  His  sin, 
as  he  called  it,  was  always  before  him,  and  with  the  prophet  he 
cried  out,  "  Who  will  give  water  to  my  head,  and  a  fountain  of 
tears  to  mine  eyes,  and  I  will  weep  day  and  night."  In  his 
journeyings  he  was  wont  to  spend  the  night  in  prayer,  and  tears, 
and  bitter  self-reproach,  as  if  he  was  the  greatest  of  sinners  ; 
and  when  he  hastened  from  "  Royal  Meath,"  into  the  far  west 
of  the  island,  we  read  that  when  Lent  approached,  he  suspended 
his  labors  for  a  time,  and  went  up  the  steep,  rugged  side  of 
Croagh  Patrick,  and  there,  like  his  Divine  Master,  he  spent  the 
holy  time  in  fasting  and  prayer  ;  and  his  "  tears  were  his  food 
night  and  day."  Whithersoever  he  went  he  left  traces  of  his 
penitential  spirit  behind  him  ;  and  Patrick's  penance  and  Pat- 
rick's purgatory  are  still  familiar  traditions  in  the  land.  Thus, 
my  brethren,  did  he  "  sow  in  tears,"  who  was  destined  to  reap 
in  so  much  joy;  for  so  it  is  ever  with  God's  saints,  who  do  his 
work  on  this  earth  ;  "  going,  they  went  and  wept,  scattering  the 
seed,  but  coming,  they  shall  come  with  joy."  His  next  great 
personal  virtue  was  a  wonderful  humility.  Now,  this  virtue 
springs  from  a  twofold  knowledge,  namely,  the  knowledge 
ot  God  and  of  ourselves.  This  was  the  double  knowledge  for 
which  the  great  St.  Augustine  prayed  :  "  Lord,  let  me  know 
thee,  and  know  myself,  that  I  may  love  thee  and   despise  my- 


1 5  St.  Patrick. 

self;"  and  this  did  our  saint  possess  in  an  eminent  degree 
This  knowledge  of  God  convinced  him  of  the  utter  worthless- 
ness  of  all  things  besides  God,  and  even  of  God's  gifts,  except 
when  used  for  Himself;  and  therefore  he  did  all  things  for  God 
and  nothing  for  self,  and  of  "  his  own  he  gave  Him  back  again  ;" 
he  lost  sight  of  himself  in  advancing  the  interests  and  the  cause 
of  God  ;  he  hid  himself  behind  his  work  in  which  he  labored  foi 
God  ;  and  strangely  enough,  his  very  name  and  history  come  down 
to  us  by  reason  of  his  great  humility,  for  he  would  write  himself 
a  sinner,  and  calls  himself  "  Patrick,  an  unworthy,  and  ignorant, 
and  sinful  man,"  for  so  he  saw  himself,  judging  himself  by  the 
standard  of  infinite  holiness  in  Jesus  Christ,  by  which  we  also 
shall  all  be  one  day  judged.  Looking  into  himself  he  found 
only  misery  and  weakness,  wonderfully  strengthened,  not  by 
himself,  but  by  God  ;  poverty  and  nakedness,  clothed  and  en- 
riched, not  by  himself,  but  by  God ;  and,  fearful  of  losing  the 
Giver  in  the  gifts,  he  put  away  from  him  the  contemplation  of 
what  God  had  made  him,  and  only  considered  what  he  was  him- 
self. Thus  was  he  always  the  most  humble  of  men.  Even  when 
seated  in  glory  and  surrounded  by  the  love  and  admiring  vene- 
ration of  an  entire  people,  never  was  his  soul  moved  from  the 
solid  foundation  of  humility,  the  twofold  knowledge;  and  so  he 
went  down  to  his  grave  a  simple  and  an  humble  man.  And  yet 
in  this  lowly  heart  there  burned  a  mighty  fire  of  love,  a  devour- 
ing zeal  for  the  souls  of  his  brethren.  Oh  !  here  indeed  does  he 
shine  forth  "  likened  unto  the  Son  of  God  ; "  for  like  our  Divine 
Lord  and  Master,  Patrick  was  a  "  zealous  lover  of  souls."  He 
well  knew  how  dear  these  souls  were  to  the  sacred  heart  of  Jesus 
Christ — how  willingly  the  Lord  of  glory  had  spent  Himself,  and 
given  His  most  sacred  and  precious  blood  for  them :  how  it  was 
the  thought  of  their  salvation  that  sustained  Him  during  the 
horror  of  His  passion ;  in  the  agony  of  His  prayer ;  when  His 
sacred  flesh  was  torn  at  the  pillar ;  when  the  cruel  thorns  were 
driven  into  His  most  holy  brows  ;  when,  with  drooping  head  and 
wearied  eyes,  and  body  streaming  blood  from  every  open  wound, 
He  was  raised  up  on  the  cross  to  die  heart-broken  and  aban- 
doned, with  the  anger  of  God  and  the  insults  of  men  poured 
upon  him.  Patrick  knew  all  this,  and  it  filled  him  with  transports 
of  zeal  for  souls,  so  that,  like  the  great  apostle,  he  wished  to  be 
as  accursed  for  them ;  and  to  die  a  thousand  times  rather  than 


St.  Patrick.  17 

that  one  soul  purchased  so  dearly,  and  the  offspring  of  so  much 
love  and  sorrow,  should  perish.  Therefore  did  he  make  himself 
the  slave  and  the  servant  of  all,  that  he  might  gain  all  to  God. 
And  in  his  mission  of  salvation  no  difficulties  retarded  him,  no 
danger  frightened  him,  no  labor  or  sacrifice  held  him  back,  no 
sickness  subdued  him,  no  infirmity  of  body  or  mind  overcame 
him.  Old  age  came  upon  him,  yet  he  spared  not  himself,  nor 
did  he  for  a  moment  sit  down  to  count  his  years,  or  to  number 
his  triumphs,  or  to  consider  his  increasing  wants  ;  but  his  voice 
was  clear  and  strong  and  his  arm  untiring,  though  he  had  reaped 
a  harvest  of  many  years  and  had  borne  "  the  burthen  of  the  day 
and  the  heat ;  "  and  his  heart  was  young,  for  it  was  still  growing, 
in  the  faith  of  those  around  him.  Even  to  the  last  day  of  his 
life  "  his  youth  was  renewed  like  the  eagle."  He  repeatedly 
journeyed  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  car- 
ing and  tending  with  prayer,  and  blessing,  and  tears,  the  plants 
which  he  had  planted  in  this  new  vineyard  of  God :  and  grace 
was  poured  abroad  from  his  lips,  and  "  virtue  went  forth  from 
him,"  until  the  world  was  astonished  at  the  sight  of  a  whole 
nation  converted  by  one  man,  and  the  promise  made  of  old  was 
fulfilled  in  Patrick,  "  I  will  deliver  to  you  every  place  that  the 
sole  of  your  foot  shall  tread  upon,  and  no  man  shall  be  able  to 
resist  thee  all  the  days  of  thy  life."  And  now  we  come  to  the 
question,  What  did  St.  Patrick  teach,  and  in  what  form  of 
Christianity  did  he  expend  himself  for  God  ?  For  fifteen  hun- 
dred years,  my  brethren,  Christianity  meant  one  thing,  one  doc- 
trine, one  faith,  one  authority,  one  baptism  ;  now,  however,  in 
our  day,  this  same  Christianity,  though  as  undivided,  as  true, 
as  exclusive,  as  definite  as  ever,  is  made  to  signify  many  things ; 
and  men,  fondly  imagining  that  our  ancestors  had  no  greater 
unity  than  ourselves,  ask  what  form  of  doctrine  did  St.  Patrick 
preach  to  the  Irish  people?  I  answer:  He  preached  the  whole 
cycle  of  Catholic  truth  as  it  was  in  the  beginning,  is  now,  and 
ever  shall  be  to  the  end  of  time.  He  taught  them  that  Christ's 
most  sacred  body  and  blood  are  really  and  truly  present  in  the 
Blessed  Eucharist,  so  that  we  find  an  Irish  writer  of  the  same 
century  (Sedulius)  using  the  words  "we  are  fed  on  the  body 
and  the  members  of  Christ,  and  so  we  are  made  the  temples  of 
God  ;  "  again,  the  language  used  by  the  Irish  Church  at  the  time, 
as  even  the  Protestant  Bishop  Usher  acknowledges,  concerning 

2 


1 8  St.  Patrick. 

the  Mass,  was  "  the  making  of  the  body  of  the  Lord."  In  sup. 
port  of  the  same  truth  we  have  the  beautiful  legend  of  St.  Brid- 
gid — which,  even  if  its  truth  be  disputed,  still  points  to  the  popu- 
lar faith  and  love  whence  it  sprang — how,  when  a  certain  child, 
named  Nennius,  was  brought  to  her,  she  blessed  him,  and 
prophesied  that  his  hand  should  one  day  give  her  the  Holy 
Communion*;  whereupon  the  boy  covered  his  right  hand  and 
never  again  let  it  touch  any  profane  thing,  nor  be  even  uncov- 
ered, so  that  he  was  called  "  Nennius  na  laumh  glas"  or,  Nen- 
nius of  the  clean  hand,  out  of  devotion  and  love  to  the  most 
Holy  Sacrament.  St.  Patrick  taught  the  doctrine  of  penance 
and  confession  of  sins  and  priestly  absolution;  for  we  find, 
amongst  the  other  proofs,  an  old  penitential  canon  of  a  synod 
held  under  the  saint  himself  in  450,  in  which  it  is  decreed  that  "  if 
a  Christian  kill  a  man,  or  commit  fornication,  or  go  in  to  a 
soothsayer  after  the  manner  of  the  Gentiles,  he  shall  do  a  year  of 
penance  ;  when  his  year  of  penance  is  over,  he  shall  come  with 
witnesses,  and  afterwards  he  shall  be  absolved  by  the  priest." 
He  taught  the  invocation  of  saints,  as  is  evident  from  nu- 
merous records  of  the  time.  Thus,  in  a  most  ancient  life  of  St. 
Bridgid  we  find  the  words,  "There  are  two  holy  virgins  in 
heaven  who  may  undertake  my  protection — Mary  and  Bridgid 
— on  whose  patronage  let  each  of  us  depend."  In  like  manner, 
we  find  in  the  synods  of  the  time  laws  concerning  the  "obla- 
tions for  -the  dead ;"  in  the  most  ancient  Irish  missals  Masses 
for  the  dead  are  found  with  such  prayers  as  "  Grant,  O  Lord,  that 
this  holy  oblation  may  work  pardon  for  the  dead  and  salvation 
for  the  living;"  and  in  a  most  ancient  life  of  St.  Brendan  it  is 
stated  that  "the  prayer  of  the  living  doth  much  profit  the 
dead."  But,  my  brethren,  as  in  the  personal  character  of  the  saint 
there  were  some  amongst  his  virtues  that  shone  out  more  con- 
spicuously than  the  others,  so  in  his  teaching  there  were  certain 
points  which  appear  more  prominently,  which  seemed  to  be  im- 
pressed upon  the  people  more  forcibly,  and  to  have  taken  pecu- 
liar hold  of  the  national  mind.  Let  us  consider  what  these 
peculiar  features  of  St.  Patrick's  teaching  were,  and  we  shall 
sec  how  they  reveal  to  us  what  I  proposed  as  the  third  point  of 
this  sermon,  namely,  the  merciful  providence  of  God  over  the 
Irish  Church  and  people.  They  were  the  following:  Fidelity 
to  St.  Peter's  ch?.ir  and  to  Peter's  successor,  the  Pope  of  Rome 


St.  Patrick.  ig 

devotion  to  the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary;  prayer  and  remembrance 
for  the  dead  ;  and  confiding  obedience  and  love  for  their  bishops 
and  priests.  These  were  the  four  great  prominent  features  of 
Patrick's  teaching:  by  the  first,  namely,  fidelity  to  the  Pope,  he 
secured  the  unity  of  the  Irish  Church  as  a  living  member  of  the 
Church  Catholic;  by  the  second,  devotion  to  the  Blessed 
Virgin,  he  secured  the  purity  and  morality  of  the  people;  by 
the  third,  care  of  the  dead,  he  enlisted  on  the  side  of  Catholic 
truth  the  natural  love  and  strong  feelings  of  the  Irish  character; 
and  by  the  last,  attachment  and  obedience  to  the  priesthood, 
he  secured  to  the  Irish  Church  the  principle  of  internal  union, 
which  is  the  secret  of  her  strength.  He  preached  fidelity  and 
unswerving  devotion  to  the  Pope — the  head  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  Coming  direct  from  Rome,  and  filled  with  ecclesiasti- 
cal knowledge,  he  opened  up  before  the  eyes  of  his  new  children 
and  revealed  to  them  the  grand  design  of  Almighty  God  in  His 
Church.  He  showed  them  in  the  world  around  them  the 
wonderful  harmony  which  speaks  of  God";  then  rising  into  the 
higher  world  of  grace,  he  preached  to  them  the  still  more 
wonderful  harmony  of  redemption  and  of  the  Church,  —  the 
Church,  so  vast  as  to  fill  the  whole  earth,  yet  as  united  in  doc- 
trine and  practice  as  if  she  embraced  only  the  members  of  one 
small  family  or  the  inhabitants  of  one  little  village ;  the 
Church,  embracing  all  races  of  men,  and  leaving  to  all  their  full 
individual  freedom  of  thought  and  action  ;  yet  animating  all 
with  one  soul,  quickening  all  as  with  one  life  and  one  heart ; 
guiding  all  with  the  dictates  of  one  immutable  conscience,  and 
keeping  every,  even  the  least,  member,  under  the  dominion  of 
one  head.  Such  was  the  Church  on  which  Patrick  engrafted 
Ireland — "A  glorious  Church,  without  spot  or  wrinkle  ;"  a  per- 
fect body,  the  very  mystical  body  of  Jesus  Christ,  through 
which  "we,  being  wild  olives,  are  engrafted  on  Him,  the  true 
olive-tree,"  so  that  "we  are  made  the  flesh  of  His  flesh,  and 
bone  of  His  bones."  Now,  Patrick  taught  our  fathers,  with 
truth,  that  the  soul,  the  life,  the  heart,  the  conscience,  and  the 
head  of  the  Church  is  Jesus  Christ,  and  that  His  representative 
on  earth,  to  whom  He  has  communicated  all  His  graces  and 
powers,  is  the  Pope  of  Rome,  the  visible  head  of  God's  Church, 
the  Bishop  of  Bishops,  the  centre  of  unity  and  of  doctrine,  the 
rock  and  the  corner-stone  on  which  the  whole  edifice  of  the 


20  St.  Patrick. 

Church  is  founded  and  built  up.  All  this  he  pointed  out  in 
the  Scriptures,  from  the  words  of  our  Lord  to  Peter.  Petef 
was  the  shepherd  of  the  fold,  whose  duty  it  was  to  "  feed  both 
lambs  and  sheep "  with  "  every  word  that  cometh  from  the 
mouth  of  God."  Peter  was  the  rock  to  sustain  and  uphold  the 
Church :  "  thou,  art  Peter,  and  upon  this  rock  I  will  build  my 
Church  "  (words  which  are  the  very  touchstone  of  faith  in  these 
days  of  sorrow).  Peter's  was  the  strong,  unerring  voice  which 
was  ever  to  be  heard  in  the  Church,  defining  her  doctrines, 
warning  off  enemies,  denouncing  errors,  rebuking  sinners,  guid- 
ing the  doubtful,  strengthening  the  weak,  confirming  the  strong; 
and  Jesus  said,  "  Thou,  O  Peter,  confirm  thy  brethren."  Patrick 
taught  the  Irish  people  not  to  be  scandalized  if  they  saw  the 
cross  upon  Peter's  shoulders,  and  the  crown  of  thorns  upon  his 
head,  for  so  Christ  lives  in  His  Church  and  in  her  supreme 
pastor ;  but  he  also  taught  them  that  he  who  strikes  Peter 
strikes  the  Lord ;  he  taught  them  what  history  has  taught  us, 
that  "whosoever  shall  fall  upon  that  stone  shall  be  bruised; 
and  upon  whomsoever  it  shall  fall  it  will  grind  him  to  powder." 
He  taugTit  them  that  in  the  day  when  they  separated  from  Peter 
they  separated  from  Christ,  as  did  the  foolish  men  in  the  Gos- 
pel :  "  After  this  many  of  his  disciples  went  back  and  walked 
no  more  with  him.  Then  Jesus  said  to  the  twelve,  Will  you  also 
go  away?  And  Simon  Peter  answered  Him:  Lord,  to  whom 
shall  we  go?  Thou  hast  the  words  of  eternal  life."  Thus  it 
was,  my  brethren,  that  He  bound  them  to  "  the  rock  of  ages," 
to  Peter's  chair,  with  firmest  bounds  of  obedience  and  love,  and 
infused  into  their  souls  that  supernatural  instinct,  which,  for 
fifteen  hundred  years,  has  kept  them,  through  good  report  and  evil 
report,  through  persecution  and  sorrow,  faithful  and  loyal  to  the 
Holy  See  of  Rome.  It  was  a  bond  of  obedience  and  love  that 
bound  Ireland  to  Rome.  Thus,  in  the  beginning  of  the  seventh  cen- 
tury, when  the  Irish  bishops  assembled  to  consider  the  question 
of  celebrating  Easter,  we  find  the  Fathers  selecting  some  "  wise 
and  humble  men,"  and  sending  them  to  Rome  for  instruction, 
"  as  children  to  their  mother ;"  and  this  in  obedience  to  a  primi- 
tive law  of  the  Irish  Church,  which  enacted  that,  in  every  diffi- 
culty that  might  arise,  "  the  question  should  be  referred  to  the 
Head  of  Cities,"  as  Rome  was  called.  This  devotion  to  the 
Holy  See  saved  Ireland  in  the  day  of  trial. 


St.  Patrick.  21 

The  next  great  feature  in  Patrick's  preaching  was  devotion  to 
the  Mother  of  God.  Of  this  we  have  abundant  proof  in  the 
i  umerous  churches  built  and  dedicated  to  God  under  her  name. 
Ce<ut>f>oiU  2buirie  {Tcampoill  M/na'rc),  or  Mary's  Church,  became 
a  familiar  name  in  the  land.  In  the  far  west  of  Ireland,  where 
the  traditions  of  our  holy  faith  are  still  preserved,  enshrined  in 
the  purest  form  of  our  grand  old  Celtic  language,  the  sweet  name 
of  the  Mother  of  God  is  heard  in  the  prayers  and  songs  of  the 
people,  in  their  daily  familiar  converse,  in  the  supplications  of 
the  poor,  not  under  the  title  of  "  our  Lady,"  or  of  "  the  Blessed 
Virgin,"  but  by  the  still  more  endearing  name  of  2buirie  QOacaiti 
(Muire  Mathair),  "  Mary  Mother."  And  so  it  was  that  Patrick 
sent  his  Catholic  doctrines  home  to  the  hearts  of  the  people. 
He  preached  Jesus  Christ  under  the  name  by  which  He  is  still 
known  and  adored  in  that  far  western  land  :  2tK\c  n<v  SOAijb^e 
(Mac  7ia  Maighdine),  "  the  Virgin's  Son,"  thus  admirably  insin- 
uating the  great  mystery  of  the  Incarnation,  and  preaching  Jesus 
through  Mary ;  and  Mary  herself  he  preached,  with  all  her 
graces  and  glories,  as  "  Mary  Mother."  The  example  of  her 
virginal  purity  and  maternal  love  he  made  the  type  of  the  Irish 
maiden  and  mother ;  and  so  well  did  they  learn  their  high 
lesson,  that  they  have  been  for  ages  the  admiration  of  the  world, 
and  the  glory  of  their  afflicted  country.  The  devotion  to  Mary 
sank  deep  into  the  heart  of  the  nation.  So  well  had  they 
already  learned  to  love  and  appreciate  her,  that,  in  a  few  years 
after  their  conversion  to  the  faith,  when  they  would  express  their 
love  and  admiration  for  the  first  great  Irish  virgin  saint — St.  Brid- 
gid — they  thought  they  had  crowned  her  with  glory  when  they 
called  her  "  the  Mary  of  Ireland."  This  devotion  to  Mary  was  a 
protecting  shield  over  Ireland  in  the  day  of  her  battle  for  the  faith. 

The  third  great  prominent  point  in  St.  Patrick's  preaching 
was  the  doctrine  of  Purgatory,  and  consequently,  careful  thought 
and  earnest  prayer  for  the  dead.  This  is  attested  by  the  ordi- 
nances of  the  most  ancient  Irish  synods,  in  which  oblations, 
prayers,  and  sacrifice  for  the  dead  are  frequently  mentioned,  as 
evidently  being  the  practice,  frequent  and  loving,  of  the  people. 
They  were  not  unmindful  of  the  dead,  "  like  others  who  have  no 
hope."  Every  ancient  church  had  its  little  graveyard,  and  the 
jealous  care  of  the  people,  even  to  this  day,  for  these  conse- 
crated spots,  the  loving  tenacity  with  which  they  have  clung 


22  Si.  Patrick. 

to  them  at  all  times,  speak  of  their  faith  in  this  great  doctrine, 
and  tell  us  how  much  Irish  hope  and  love  surrounds  the  grave. 
"  Nothing  is  our  own  except  our  dead,"  says  the  poet,  and  so 
these  affectionate  hearts  took  with  joy  the  doctrine  of  mercy, 
and  carried  their  love  and  their  prayer  beyond  the  tomb  into 
the  realms  of  expiation,  where  the  dross  of  earth  is  purged  away, 
the  gold  and  silver  refined,  and  souls  saved  are  prepared  for 
heaven,  "yet  so  as  by  fire."  This  doctrine  of  the  Church,  so 
forcibly  taught  by  Patrick,  and  warmly  accepted  by  the  Irish 
people,  was  also  a  great  defence  to  the  nation's  faith  during  the 
long  ages  of  persecution  and  sorrow. 

Finally,  the  great  saint  established  between  the  people  and  their 
priesthood  the  firmest  bonds  of  mutual  confidence  and  love.  In 
the  Catholic  Church  the  priest  is  separated  from  men  and  con- 
secrated to  God.  The  duties  of  his  office  are  so  high,  so  holy, 
and  supernatural,  and  require  such  purity  of  life  and  devotion 
of  soul,  that  he  must,  of  necessity,  stand  aloof  from  amongst 
men  and  engage  himself  with  God ;  for,  to  use  the  words  of  the 
apostle,  he  is  "  the  minister  of  Christ  and  the  dispenser  of  the 
mysteries  of  God."  Hence,  every  Catholic  looks  upon  the  priest 
as  a  supernatural  man  ;  supernatural  in  the  unction  of  his  priest- 
hood, in  his  office,  his  power,  his  life,  his  duties,  and  most  sacred 
in  his  person  as  the  anointed  of  the  Lord.  This  was  the  idea 
of  the  priesthood  which  Saint  Patrick  impressed  upon  the  Irish 
people.'  The  very  name  by  which  the  priest  has  ever  been 
known  in  our  language,  and  which  has  no  corresponding  word 
in  the  English  tongue,  signifies  "  a  sacred  man  and  a  giver  of 
sacred  things."  Such  is  the  exalted  dignity  of  the  priest- 
hood, such  the  knowledge  and  matured  sanctity  required 
for,  and  the  tremendous  obligations  and  duties  imposed 
upon  it,  that  we  generally  find  the  first  priests  of  a  newly  con- 
verted people  strangers ;  men  who  in  Christian  lands  were 
brought  up  and  educated  for  their  high  mission.  It  would  seem 
as  if  the  young  Christianity  of  a  people,  like  a  vine  but  newly 
planted,  were  unable  yet  to  bear  such  full  matured  fruit  of  holi- 
ness. But  it  was  not  so  in  Ireland,  my  brethren.  There  we 
behold  a  singular  instance  of  a  people  who  immediately  pro. 
duced  a  national  priesthood.  The  priests  and  bishops  of  Ire- 
land, who  assisted  and  succeeded  3t.  Patrick  in  his  great  work, 
were  almost  to  a  man  Irishmen.     So  congenial  was  the  soil  on 


St.  Patrick.  23 

which  the  seedling  of  Christianity  fell,  that  forthwith  it  sprung 
up  into  the  goodly  tree  of  all  holiness  and  power ;  and  so  the 
aged  apostle  saw  around  him,  in  "the  ring  of  his  brethren,' 
those  whom  he  had  himself  baptized,  anointed,  and  consecrated 
into  the  ministry  of  God's  altar  and  people.  Taken  thus  from  the 
heart  of  the  people  they  returned  to  them  again  laden  with  divine 
gifts,  and,  living  in  the  midst  of  them,  joyfully  and  contentedly 
ministered  unto  them  "  in  all  things  that  are  of  God."  A  com- 
munity of  joy  and  sorrow,  of  good  and  of  evil,  was  thus  estab- 
lished between  the  priesthood  and  the  people  of  Ireland ;  an 
intercourse  the  most  familiar  yet  most  reverential ;  an  union  of 
the  strictest  kind,  founded  in  faith,  fidelity,  and  affection,  and 
cemented  by  centuries  of  tears  and  of  blood. 

For  more  than  a  thousand  years  the  work  of  St.  Patrick  was 
the  glory  of  Christendom.  The  Virgin  Church  of  Ireland,  un- 
stained even  by  one  martyr's  blood,  became  the  prolific  mother 
of  saints.  Strange  indeed,  and  singular  in  its  glory,  was  the 
destiny  of  Innisfail.  The  Irish  Church  knew  no  childhood,  no 
ages  of  painful  and  uncertain  struggle  to  put  on  Christian  usages 
and  establish  Christian  traditions.  Like  the  children  in  the  early 
ages  of  the  Church,  who  were  confirmed  in  infancy,  immediately 
after  baptism,  Ireland  was  called  upon  as  soon  as  converted  to 
become  at  once  the  mother  of  saints,  the  home  and  refuge  of 
learning,  the  great  instructress  of  the  nations  ;  and,  perhaps,  the 
history  of  the  world  does  not  exhibit  a  more  striking  and  glori- 
ous sight  than  Ireland  for  the  three  hundred  years  immediately 
following  her  conversion  to  the  Catholic  faith.  The  whole  island 
was  covered  with  schools  and  monasteries,  in  which  men, 
the  most  renowned  of  their  age,  both  for  learning  and 
sanctity,  received  the  thousands  of  students  who  flocked  to 
them  from  every  land.  Wh.;le  cities  were  given  up  to  them  ;  as 
we  read  of  Armagh,  which  was  divided  into  three  parts — "  Trian- 
more,"  or  the  town  proper ;  "  Trian-Patrick"  or  the  cathedral 
close ;  "  Trian-Sasscyiagh"  or  the  Latin  quarter,  the  home  of  the 
foreign  students.  To  the  students  the  evening  star  gave  the  sig- 
nal for  retirement,  and  the  morning  sun  for  awaking.  When,  at 
the  sound  of  the  early  bell,  says  the  historian,  "  two  or  three 
thousand  of  them  poured  into  the  silent  streets  and  made  their 
way  towards  the  lighted  church,  to  join  in  the  service  of  matins, 
mingling,  as  they  went  or  returned,  the  tongues  of  the  Gael,  the 


24  St.  Patrick. 

Cimbri,  the  Pict,  the  Saxon,  and  the  Frank,  01  hailing  and  an. 
swering  each  other  in  the  universal  language  of  the  Roman 
Church,  the  angels  in  heaven  must  have  loved  to  contemplate 
the  union  of  so  much  perseverance  with  so  much  piety."  And 
thus  it  was,  not  only  in  St.  Patrick's  own  city  of  Armagh,  but  in 
Bangor,  in  Clonard,  in  Clonmacnoise,  in  Mayo ;  of  the  Saxons 
in  Tagmahon  and  Beg-Erin,  on  the  Slaney ;  in  famed  Lismore, 
on  the  Blackwater ;  in  Mungret,  on  the  lordly  Shannon ;  in  the 
far-off  Islands  of  Arran,  on  the  Western  Ocean ;  and  in  many 
another  sainted  and  historic  spot,  where  the  round  tower  and 
the  group  of  seven  churches  still  remain,  silent  but  eloquent 
witnesses  of  the  sanctity  and  the  glory  of  Ireland's  first  Chris- 
tianity. The  nations,  beholding  and  admiring  the  lustre  of 
learning  and  sanctity  which  shone  forth  in  the  holy  isle,  united  in 
conferring  upon  Ireland  the  proudest  title  ever  yet  given  to  a  land 
or  a  people  ;  they  called  her  "  the  Island  of  Saints  and  Doctors." 
The  voice  of  history  clearly  and  emphatically  proclaims  that 
the  intellectual  supremacy  and  guidance  of  the  Christian 
world  belonged  to  Ireland  from  the  sixth  to  the  ninth  cen- 
turies. But,  although  religion  may  flourish  in  the  halls  of 
the  university,  and  be  fairly  illustrated  in  the  peaceful  lives 
of  the  saints,  yet,  there  is  one  crown,  and  that,  indeed,  the 
very  countersign  of  faith, — "victoria  qua  vincit  mundum  fides" 
— which  can  only  rest  on  the  brows  of  a  church  and  a 
nation  which  has  been  tried  in  the  arena  of  persecution  and 
war :  and  that  crown  is  victory.  The  bay-tree  may  flourish  by 
tne  river-side;  the  cedar  may  rear  its  majestic  head  on  the 
mountain-top  ;  leaf  and  fair  flower,  and  the  fullness  of  fruit  may 
be  there ;  but  it  is  only  in  the  dark  hour,  when  the  storm  sweeps 
over  the  earth,  and  every  weak  thing  yields  to  it,  and  is  carried 
away  by  its  fury,  that  the  good  tree  is  tested,  and  its  strength 
is  proved.  Then  do  men  see  whether  it  has  struck  its  roots  deep 
into  the  soil,  and  so  twined  them  about  the  hidden  rocks  that 
no  power  can  tear  them  out.  The  good  ship  may  sail  before 
the  prosperous  gales,  and  "  walk  the  waters  "  in  all  her  beauty 
and  majesty ;  but  it  is  only  on  the  morning  after  the  storm, 
when  the  hurricane  has  swept  over  the  face  of  the  deep,  when 
tbs  angry  waves  have  beaten  upon  her,  and  strained  to  its 
utmost  every  element  of  her  strength— seeking  to  destroy  her, 
but  in  vain, — that  the  sailor  knows  that  he  can  trust  to  tha 


St.  Patrick.  2$ 

.heart  of  oak,  and  sleep  securely  in  his  noble  vessel.  Thus  it  is 
with  the  Church  in  Ireland.  Her  beauty  and  her  sanctity  were 
known  and  admired  both  of  God  and  man ;  but  her  Lord  was 
resolved  that  she  should  wear  such  crown  of  victory  as  never 
was  placed  on  a  nation's  brows;  and  therefore,  at  two  distinct 
periods  of  her  history,  was  she  obliged  to  meet  and  conquer  a 
storm  of  persecution  and  of  war  unequalled  in  the  world's  annals. 
The  first  of  these  great  trials  came  upon  Ireland  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  ninth  century,  when  the  Northmen,  or  Danes,  invaded 
the  country  in  mighty  force.  They  came  not  only  as  the  enemies 
of  Ireland's  nationality,  but  much  more  of  her  faith ;  and  we 
invariably  find  that  their  first  and  most  destructive  fury  was 
directed  against  the  churches,  monasteries,  and  schools.  The 
gloomy  and  terrible  worship  of  Odin  was  to  replace  the  religion 
of  Christ ;  and  for  three  hundred  long  years  the  whole  land  was 
covered  with  bloodshed  and  confusion,  the  nation  fighting  with 
heroic  courage  and  perseverance,  in  defence  of  its  altars  and 
homes  ;  until,  at  the  close  of  the  eleventh  century,  Ireland  rose 
up  in  her  united  strength,  shook  off  the  Pagan  and  fierce  invad- 
ers from  her  virgin  bosom,  and  cast  them  into  the  sea.  The 
faith  and  religion  of  Christ  triumphed,  and  Ireland  was  as  Cath- 
olic, though  far  from  being  as  holy,  at  the  end  of  the  eleventh 
as  she  was  at  the  end  of  the  eighth  century.  Now  we  can  only 
realize  the  greatness  of  this  result  by  comparing  it  with  the  his- 
tory of  other  nations.  Behold,  for  instance,  how  completely 
the  Mussulman  invasions  destroyed  the  Christianity  of  those 
ancient  peoples  of  the  East  who  had  received  the  faith  from  the 
lips  of  the  apostles  themselves  ;  how  thoroughly  the  Saracens 
succeeded,  in  a  few  years,  in  destroying  the  Christian  faith  of 
the  north  of  Africa, — that  once  famous  and  flourishing  Church, 
the  Alexandria  of  St.  Mark,  the  Hippo  of  St.  Augustine,  the 
Carthage  of  St.  Cyprian.  History  attests  that  nothing  is  more 
subversive  of  the  religion  of  a  people  than  long-continued  war , 
and  of  this  great  truth  we  have,  without  going  to  the  East  or  to 
Africa,  a  most  melancholy  proof  in  the  history  of  England. 
"The  Wars  of  the  Roses,"  as  the  strife  between  the  Houses  of 
Lancaster  and  York  was  called,  cover  a  space  of  only  thirty 
years,  from  1455  to  1485.  This  war  was  not  directed  at  all 
against  religion,  but  was  simply  a  contention  of  two  great  rival 
Houses  struggling  for  the  sovereignty  ;  and  yet  it  so  demoral- 


26  St.  Patrick. 

ized  the  English  people  that  they  were  prepared  to  accept 
almost  without  a  struggle,  the  monstrous  form  of  religious  error 
imposed  upon  them  at  the  so-called  Reformation, — an  heretical 
Church  with  a  tyrant,  an  adulterer,  and  a  murderer  for  its  head. 
Contrast  with  these  and  many  other  such  terrible  examples  the 
glory  of  a  nation  that  emerged  from  a  contest  of  three  hundred 
years,  which  was  really  a  religious  war,  with  faith  unimpaired, 
and  untarnished  by  the  least  stain  of  superstition  or  infidelity  to 
God. 

It  is  not  necessary  for  us  to-day  to  recall  the  sad  events  that 
followed  the  Danish  invasion  of  Ireland.  The  crown  of  empire 
fell  from  Ireland's  brows,  and  the  heart  broke  in  the  nation's 
bosom. 

"  The  emerald  gem  of  the  western  world 
Was  set  in  the  crown  of  the  stranger." 

It  is,  however,  worthy  of  remark  that  although  Ireland  never 
was  united  in  her  opposition  to  her  English  invader,  as  she  had 
been  at  Clontarf,  still  the  contest  for  national  existence  was  so 
gallantly  maintained  that  it  was  four  hundred  years  since  the 
first  Norman  invasion,  before  the  English  monarch  ventured  to 
assume  the  title  of  "King  of  Ireland."  It  was  in  1 169  the 
English  first  landed,  and  it  was  on  the  19th  of  June,  1541,  that 
the  royalty  of  Ireland  was  first  transferred  to  an  English  dynasty, 
and  the  Lordship  of  the  Island  of  Saints  conferred  on  one  of  the 
most  wicked  and  inhuman  monsters  that  ever  cursed  the  earth, 
King  Henry  VIII.  And  now  a  new  era  of  persecution  and 
sorrow  opened  upon  Ireland.  The  nation  was  commanded  to 
give  up  its  faith  and  religion.  Never,  since  the  beginning  of  the 
world,  was  an  all-important  question  more  solemnly  put ;  never 
has  it  been  more  triumphantly  and  clearly  answered.  The  ques- 
tion was  :  Were  the  Irish  people  prepared  to  stand  by  their 
ancient  faith,  to  unite  in  defence  of  their  altars,  to  close  with 
the  mighty  persecuting  power  of  England,  and  fight  her  in  the 
cause  of  religion?  Solemnly  and  deliberately  did  Ireland  take 
up  the  gage  and  accept  the  great  challenge.  The  issue  seemed 
scarcely  doubtful.  The  world  refused  to  believe  that  a  people 
who  could  never  be  united  in  the  defence  of  their  national  ex- 
istence would  unite  as  one  man  in  defence  of  religion ;  or  that 
the  power  which  had  succeeded  in  breaking  Ireland's  «>ceptre 
and  wresting  her  crown  should  be  utterly  defeated  m  its  might 


St.  Patrick.  2J 

iest  and  most  persistent  efforts  to  destroy  Ireland's  ancient  faith. 
Vet  so  it  was  to  be.  The  "  Island  of  Saints  and  Doctors  "  was 
destined  to  be  a  land  of  heroes  and  martyrs,  and  the  sacred 
cause  of  Ireland's  nationality  was  destined  to  be  saved  in  the 
victory  which  crowned  her  wonderful  and  glorious  battle  for  her 
faith.  This  is  not  the  time  nor  the  occasion  to  dwell  upon  the 
details  of  that  terrible  struggle  in  which  the  whole  strength  of 
earth's  mightiest  people  was  put  forth  against  us  ;  which  lasted 
for  three  hundred  years;  which  was  fought  out  on  a  thousand 
battle-fields  ;  which  deluged  Ireland  with  the  best  blood  of  her 
children,  and  reduced  her  fairest  provinces,  over  and  over  again, 
to  the  condition  of  a  waste  and  desert  land.  But  the  Celt  was  en- 
trenched in  the  citadel  of  God  ;  the  light  of  divine  truth  was  upon 
his  path,  the  power  of  the  Most  High  nerved  his  arm,  and  the 
spirit  of  Patrick  hung  over  him,  like  the  fiery  cloud  that  overshad- 
owed the  hosts  of  Israel  upon  the  plains  of  Edom  and  Madian. 
Ireland's  preservation  of  the  Catholic  faith  has  been  a  puzzle 
to  the  world,  and  men  have  sought  to  explain  in  many  different 
ways  the  extraordinary  phenomenon.  Some  ascribe  it  to  our 
natural  antipathy  and  opposition  to  England  and  everything 
English  ;  others  again  allege  the  strong  conservatism  of  the  Irish 
character,  and  its  veneration  for  ancient  rites  and  usages,  merely 
because  they  are  ancient ;  whilst  English  historians  and  philoso- 
phers love  to  attribute  it  to  the  natural  obstinacy  and  wrong- 
headedness  which  they  say  is  inherent  in  the  Irish.  I  do  not 
deny  that,  amongst  the  minor  and  human  causes  that  influenced 
the  religious  action  of  the  Irish  people,  there  may  have  been  a 
hatred  and  detestation  of  England.  The  false  religion  was  pre- 
sented to  our  fathers  by  the  detested  hands  that  had  robbed 
Ireland  of  her  crown ;  it  was  offered  at  the  point  of  the  sword 
that  had  shed  (often  treacherously  and  foully)  the  blood  of  her 
bravest  sons  ;  the  nauseous  dose  of  Protestantism  was  mixed  in 
the  bowl  that  poisoned  the  last  of  her  great  earls — Owen  Roe 
O'Neil.  All  this  may  have  told  with  the  Irish  people ;  and  I 
also  admit  that  a  Church  and  religion  claiming  to  be  of  God, 
with  such  a  divinely  appointed  head  as  the  saintly  Henry  the 
Eighth — such  a  nursing  mother  as  the  chaste  Elizabeth — such 
gentle  missionaries  as  the  humane  and  tender-hearted  Oliver 
Cromwell,  may  have  presented  difficulties  to  a  people  whose  wita 
were  sharpened  by  adversity,  and  who  were  not  wholly  igno- 


28  St.  Patrick. 

rant  of  the  Christian  character,  as  illustrated  in  the  history  and 
traditions  of  their  native  land. 

We  may  also  admit  to  a  slight  extent  the  conservatism  of  the 
Irish  character  and  its  veneration  for  antiquity.  Oh,  how  much 
our  fathers  had  to  love  in  their  ancient  religion  !  Their  histor) 
began  with  their  Christianity ;  their  glories  were  all  intertwined 
with  their  religion  ;  their  national  banners  was  inscribed  with  the 
emblem  of  their  faith,  "  the  green,  immortal  Shamrock ;"  the 
brightest  names  in  their  history  were  all  associated  with  their 
religion — "  Malachi  of  the  collar  of  gold,"  dying  in  the  midst 
of  the  monks,  and  clothed  with  their  holy  habit  on  an  island  of 
Lough  Ennel,  near  Mullingar,  in  Meath — Brian,  "  the  great 
King,"  upholding  the  crucifix  before  his  army  on  the  morning 
of  Clontarf,  and  expiring  in  its  embraces  before  the  sunset — the 
brave  Murkertach  O'Brien  answering  fearlessly  the  threat  of 
William  Rufus — for,  when  the  English  king  said,  looking  towards 
Ireland,  "  I  will  bring  hither  my  ships,  and  pass  over  and  con- 
quer the  land  ;  "  "  Hath  the  King,"  asked  the  Irish  monarch, 
"  in  his  great  threatenings  said,  '  if  it  please  God?  '  "  And  when 
answered,  no ;  "  Then  tell  him,"  exclaimed  the  Irish  hero,  "  I 
fear  him  not,  since  he  putteth  his  trust  in  man  and  not  in  God  " 
— Roderick  O'Connor,  the  last  "  High  King"  of  Ireland,  closing 
his  career  of  disaster  and  of  glory  amongst  the  canons  of  the 
Abbey  of  Cong — saint,  and  bard,  and  hero,  all  alike  presented 
themselves  to  the  national  mind  surrounded  by  the  halo  of  that 
religion  which  the  people  were  now  called  upon  to  abandon  and 
despise.  Powerful  as  was  the  appeal  of  history  and  antiquity, 
I  cannot  give  it  any  great  weight  in  the  preservation  of  Ireland's 
Catholicity.  I  do  not  believe  that  adherence  to  ancient  usage 
because  of  its  antiquity  is  a  prominent  feature  of  Irish  character. 
We  are  by  no  means  so  conservative  as  our  English  neighbors 
It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  usages  and  customs  once  common  to 
both  countries,  and  long  since  abandoned  and  forgotten  in  Ire- 
land (Christmas  "  waits,"  for  instance,  harvest-home  feasts,  May- 
pole dances,  and  the  like)  are  still  kept  up  faithfully  and  univer- 
sally throughout  England.  The  bells  which,  in  Catholic  times, 
called  the  people  to  early  Mass  on  Sunday  morning,  are  still 
rung  out  as  of  old,  through  mere  love  of  ancient  usage,  although 
their  ringing  from  Protestant  towers  in  the  early  morning  has 
no  meaning  whatever ;  for  it  invites  to  no  service  or  prayer. 


St.  Patrick.  29 

And  yet,  in  the  essential  matter  of  religion,  where  antiqiTty  itself 
is  a  proof  of  truth,  the  conservative  English  gave  up  the  old 
faith  for  the  new;  whilst  the  Irish — in  other  things  so  regardless 
of  antiquity — died  and  shed  their  blood  for  the  old  religion, 
rather  than  turn  for  one  instant  to  the  strange  imposture  of  the 
u  ew. 

But  none  of  these  purely  natural  explanations  can  explain  the 
supernatural  fact,  that  a  whole  people  preferred,  fci  ten  genera- 
tions, confiscation,  exile,  and  death,  rather  than  surrender  their 
faith;  and  the  true  reason  lies  in  the  all-important  circumstance, 
that  the  religion  of  the  Irish  people  was  the  true  religion  of 
Jesus  Christ,  bringing  not  only  light  to  the  intelligence,  but 
grace  and  strength  to  the  heart  and  will  of  the  nation.  The  light 
of  their  divine  faith  showed  them  the  hollowness  and  fallacy  of 
Protestantism,  in  which  they  recognized  an  outrage  upon  com- 
mon sense  and  reason,  as  well  as  upon  God  ;  and  the  grace  of 
their  holy  Catholic  religion  enabled  them  to  suffer  and  die  in  its 
defence.  Here  it  is  that  we  recognize  the  providence  of  God  in 
the  preaching  of  St.  Patrick.  The  new  and  false  religion  as- 
sailed precisely  those  points  of  Catholic  teaching  which  he  had 
engraved  most  deeply  on  the  mind  and  heart  of  Ireland,  as  if  he 
had  anticipated  the  trial  and  prepared  for  it.  Attachment  to 
the  Holy  See  was  more  than  a  sentiment ;  it  was  a  passion  in 
the  Irish  bosom.  Through  good  report  and  evil  report,  Ireland 
was  always  faithful  to  Peter's  chair;  and  it  is  a  curious  fact, 
that,  when  the  Christian  world  was  confused  by  the  pretensions 
of  Antipopcs,  and  all  the  nations  of  Christendom  were,  at  one 
time  or  other,  led  astray,  so  as  to  acknowledge  some  false  pre- 
tender, Ireland,  with  an  instinct  truly  supernatural,  never  failed 
to  discover,  to  proclaim,  and  to  obey  the  true  pontiff.  She  is 
the  only  Catholic  nation  that  never  was,  for  a  moment,  separated 
from  Peter,  nor  mistaken  in  her  allegiance  to  him.  Her  prayer, 
*  her  obedience,  her  love,  were  the  sure  inheritance  of  each  succeed- 
ing Pope,  from  Celestine,  who  sent  Saint  Patrick  to  Ireland,  to 
Pius,  who,  in  our  own  day,  beheld  Patrick's  children  guarding 
his  venerable  throne,  and  prepared  to  die  in  his  glorious  cause. 
In  every  Catholic  land  union  with  Rome  is  a  principle.  In  Ire- 
land it  was  a  devotion.  And  so,  when  the  evil  genius  of  Pro- 
testantism stalked  through  the  land,  and  with  loud  voice  de- 
manded of  the  Irish  people  separation  from  Rome,  or  their  lives. 


30  St.  Patrick. 

— the  faithful  people  of  God  consented  to  die,  rather  than  to  re- 
nounce  the  faith  of  their  fathers,  transmitted  to  them  through 
the  saints. 

Devotion  to  the  Mother  of  God  was  the  next  great  feature  of 
Patrick's  preaching  and  of  Ireland's  Catholicity.  The  image  of 
all  that  was  fairest  in  nature  and  grace,  which  arose  before  the 
eyes  of  the  people,  as  depicted  by  the  great  apostles,  captivated 
their  imaginations  and  their  hearts.  They  called  her  in  their 
prayers  "  Midcn  dheclish"  their  darling  Virgin.  In  every  family 
in  the  land  the  eldest  daughter  was  a  Mary ;  every  Irish  maid  or 
mother  emulated  the  purity  of  her  virginal  innocence,  or  the 
strength  and  tenderness  of  her  maternal  love.  With  the  keen- 
ness of  love  they  associated  their  daily  sorrows  and  joys  with 
hers  ;  and  the  ineffable  grace  of  maiden  modesty  which  clung  to 
the  very  mothers  of  Ireland  seemed  to  be  the  brightest  reflec- 
tion of  Mary  which  had  lingered  upon  the  earth.  Oh,  how 
harshly  upon  the  ears  of  such  a  people  grated  the  detestable 
voice  which  would  rob  Mary  of  her  graces,  and  rob  the  world  of 
the  light  of  her  purity  and  the  glory  of  her  example  !  Never 
was  the  Mother  of  God  so  dear  to  Ireland  as  in  the  days  of  the 
nation's  persecution  and  sorrow.  Not  even  in  that  bright  day 
when  the  Virgin  Mother  seemed  to  walk  the  earth,  and  to  have 
made  Ireland  her  home,  in  the  person  of  their  own  St.  Bridget, 
was  her  name  so  dear  and  the  love  of  her  so  strong,  as  in  the 
dark  and  terrible  time  when,  church  and  altar  being  destroyed, 
every  cabin  in  the  land  resounded  with  Mary's  name,  invoked 
in.  the  Holy  Rosary,  the  great  devotion  that  saved  Ireland's 
faith. 

The  third  great  leading  feature  of  our  holy  religion  assailed  by 
Protestantism  was  the  sweet  and  tender  doctrine  of  prayer  and 
love  for  the  dead.  That  which  is  opposed  to  divine  truth  is 
always,  when  we  analyze  it,  an  outrage  on  the  best  instincts  of 
man.  Remembrance  of  those  who  are  gone,  and  a  desire  to 
help  them,  to  communicate  with  them,  seems  natural  to  us  all; 
and  the  more  tender-hearted  and  affectionate  and  loving  a  people 
are,  the  more  deeply  will  they  realize  and  appreciate  the  Catholic 
doctrine  of  Purgatory,  and  prayer  for  the  dead.  How  terrible  is 
the  separation  of  death,  as  seen  from  the  Protestant  point  of 
view  !  In  the  Catholic  church  this  mystery  of  death  is  despoiled 
of  its  worst  bitterness.     It  is  only  a  removal  from  our  bodily 


St.  Pa/rick.  31 

sight  as  if  the  loved  one  were  only  gone  on  a  journey  for  a  few 
days,  to  return  to  us  again.  Our  intercourse  with  him  does  not 
cease  ;  nay,  we  can  do  more  for  him  now  than  ever  we  could  in 
life,  and  by  our  prayers  obtain  for  him  the  relief  and  consolation 
that  will  never  be  forgotten  during  the  long  day  of  eternity  in 
Heaven.  To  a  people  like  the  Irish,  naturally  affectionate,  and 
strongly  attached  to  each  other,  the  Christian  doctrine  of  prayer 
for  the  dead  must  always  be  grateful.  Our  history  served  to 
deepen  this  portion  of  our  Catholic  devotion,  for  it  was  a  history 
of  sorrow  and  of  national  privation  ;  and  sorrow  softens  and  en- 
larges the  heart.  A  people  who  had  lost  so  much  in  life  turned 
the  more  eagerly  and  lovingly  to  their  dead.  I  remember  once 
seeing  an  aged  woman  weeping  and  praying  over  a  grave  in  Ire- 
land ;  and  when  I  questioned  her,  endeavoring  to  console  her, 
she  said,  "  Let  me  cry  my  fill ;  all  that  I  ever  had  in  this  world 
are  here  in  this  grave  ;  all  that  ever  brought  me  joy  or  sorrow  is 
here  under  this  sod  ;  and  my  only  consolation  in  life  is  to  come 
here  and  speak  to  them,  and  pray  for  them,  and  weep."  We 
may  imagine,  but  we  cannot  realize,  the  indignation  of  our 
fathers,  when  the  heartless,  sour-visaged,  cold-blooded  men  of 
Geneva  came  to  them  to  tell  them,  that  henceforth  they  must  be 
"  unmindful  of  their  dead;  like  others  who  have  no  hope."  This 
doctrine  may  do  for  the  selfish,  light-hearted,  thoughtless  world- 
ling, who  loves  nothing  in  death,  and  who  in  life  only  loves  for 
his  own  sake  ;  but  it  would  scarcely  be  acceptable  to  a  generous, 
pure,  and  loving  race,  and  withal  a  nation  of  mourners,  as  the 
Irish  were,  when  the  unnatural  doctrine  was  first  propounded  to 
them. 

Finally,  the  new  religion  was  represented  to  the  Irish  people 
by  men  who  grotesquely  represented  themselves  as  successors 
of  the  apostles.  The  popular  mind  in  Ireland  had  derived  its 
idea  of  the  Christian  priesthood  from  such  men  as  Patrick, 
Columba,  of  Iona,  and  Kevin,  of  Glendalough.  The  great 
majority  of  the  clergy  in  Ireland  were  at  all  times  monastic- 
men  who  added  to  the  character  and  purity  of  the  priest  the 
sanctity  and  austerity  of  the  Cenobite.  The  virtues  of  Ireland's 
priesthood  made  them  the  admiration  of  other  lands,  but  the 
idols  of  their  own  people.  The  monastic  glories  of  ancient  Lis- 
more  and  Bangor  were  still  reflected  from  Mcllifont  and  Bective  ; 
the  men  of  Glendalough  and  ancient  Armagh  lived  on  in  the 


32  St.  Patrick. 

Franciscan  and  Dominican  abbeys  throughout  the  land ;  and 
the  Catholic  Church  presented,  in  the  16th  century,  in  her  Irish 
clergy,  the  same  purity  of  life,  sanctity  and  austerity  of  morals, 
zeal,  and  learning,  which  illumined  the  world  in  ages  gone  by. 
Steeped  as  our  people  were  in  sorrow,  they  could  not  refrain 
from  mirth  at  the  sight  of  the  holy  "apostles"  of  the  new 
religion,  the  men  who  were  to  take  the  place  of  the  Catholic 
bishops,  and  priests,  and  monks,  to  teach  and  illustrate  by  their 
lives  the  purer  gospel  which  had  been  just  discovered — the  Mor 
monism  of  the  16th  century.  English  renegade  monks,  English 
apostate  priests,  English  drunken  brawlers,  with  a  ferocious 
English  army  at  their  back,  invaded  the  land,  and,  parading  them- 
selves, with  their  wives  or  concubines,  before  the  eyes  of  the 
astonished  and  disgusted  people,  called  upon  the  children  of  St. 
Patrick  and  St.  Columba  to  receive  them  as  "  the  ministers  of 
Christ,  and  the  dispensers  of  the  mysteries  of  God."  Their 
religion  was  worthy  of  them — they  had  no  mysteries  to  dispense 
to  the  people  ;  no  sacrifice,  no  penance,  no  confession  of  sin,  no 
fasting,  no  vows  to  God,  no  purity,  no  counsels  of  the  Gospel, 
no  sacrament  of  matrimony,  no  priesthood,  no  anointing  of  the 
sick,  no  prayer  for  the  dead.  Gracious  God  !  They  came  to  a 
people  whom  they  had  robbed  of  their  kingdom  of  earth,  and 
demanded  of  them  also  the  surrender  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  !  Was  ever  heard  such  audacity !  What  wonder  that 
Ireland -took  her  own  priest,  her  "  soggarth  a?-oon,"  to  her 
bosom  !  Never  did  she  know  his  value  till  now.  It  was  only 
when  she  had  seen  his  hideous  counterpart  that  she  realized  all 
that  she  possessed  in  the  humble  child  of  St.  Francis  and  St. 
Dominick.  The  sunshine  is  all  the  more  welcome  when  we  have 
seen  the  blackness  of  the  night ;  the  sweet  is  all  the  sweeter 
when  we  have  tasted  bitterness ;  the  diamond  shines  all  the 
brighter  when  its  dull,  glassy  counterfeit  is  set  beside  it ;  and 
the  Angel  of  Light  has  all  the  purer  radiance  of  heaven  around 
him,  after  the  affrighted  eye  has  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  Spirit 
of  Darkness.  As  strangers,  the  ministers  of  Protestantism  have 
lived  in  Ireland  for  three  hundred  years ;  as  strangers  they  live 
in  the  land  to-day.  The  people  and  their  clergy,  united,  "  have 
fought  the  good  fight,  have  kept  the  faith,"  and  we  have  livel 
to  see  the  triumph  of  that  faith  in  our  own  day. 

Now,  I  say,  that  in  all  this,  we  see  the  Providence  of  God  in 


St.  Patrick. 


33 


the  labor  of  Ireland's  glorious  apostle.  Who  can  deny  that  the 
religion  which  St.  Patrick  gave  to  Ireland  is  divine?  A  thou- 
sand years  of  sanctity  attest  it ;  three  hundred  years  of  mart)  r- 
dom  attest  it.  If  men  will  deny  the  virtues  which  it  create^  the 
fortitude  which  it  inspires,  let  them  look  to  the  history  of  Ire- 
land. If  men  say  that  the  Catholic  religion  flourishes  only  be- 
cause of  the  splendor  of  its  ceremonial,  the  grandeur  of  its  liturgy, 
and  its  appeal  to  the  senses,  let  them  look  to  the  history  of  Ire- 
land. What  sustained  the  faith  when  church  and  altar  dis- 
appeared ?  when  no  light  burned,  no  organ  pealed,  but  all  was 
desolation  for  centuries?  Surely  the  divine  life,  which  is  the 
soul  of  the  Church,  of  which  the  external  worship  and  cere- 
monial are  but  the  expression.  But  if  they  will  close  their  eyes 
to  all  this,  at  least  there  is  a  fact  before  them — the  most  glorious 
and  palpable  of  our  day — and  it  is,  that  Ireland's  Catholicity  has 
risen  again  to  eveiy  external  glory  of  worship,  and  triumphed 
over  every  enemy.  Speaking  of  our  Lord,  St.  Augustine  says, 
"  In  that  He  died  He  showed  Himself  man  ;  in  that  He  rose 
again  He  proved  Himself  God."  Has  not  the  Irish  Church 
risen  again  to  more  than  her  former  glory  ?  The  land  is  covered 
once  more  with  fair  churches,  convents,  colleges,  and  monas- 
teries, as  of  old ;  and  who  shall  say  that  the  religion  that  could 
thus  suffer  and  rise  again  is  not  from  God  ?  This  glorious  tes- 
timony to  God  and  to  His  Christ  is  thine,  O  holy  and  venerable 
ifind  of  my  birth  and  of  my  love  !  O  glory  of  earth  and  Heaven, 
to-day  thy  great  apostle  looks  down  upon  thee  from  his  high 
seat  of  bliss,  and  his  heart  rejoices ;  to-day  the  angels  of  God 
rejoice  over  thee,  for  the  light  of  sanctity  which  still  beams  upon 
thee ;  to-day  thy  troops  of  virgin  and  martyr  saints  speak  thy 
praises  in  the  high  courts  of  heaven.  And  I,  O  Mother,  far 
away  from  thy  green  bosom,  hail  thee  from  afar — as  the  prophet 
of  old  beholding  the  fair  plains  of  the  promised  land — and  pro- 
claim this  day  that  there  is  no  land  so  fair,  no  spot  of  earth  to 
be  compared  to  thee,  no  island  rising  out  of  the  wave  so  beau- 
ful  as  thou  art ;  that  neither  the  sun,  nor  the  moon,  nor  the 
stars  of  heaven,  shine  down  upon  anything  so  lovely  as  thee,  O 
Erin! 


FUNERAL      ORATION 


O'CONNELL. 


[On  the  occasion  of  the  removal  of  the  remains  of  Ireland's  Liberator  to  their  final 
resting-place  in  Glasnevin,  beneath  the  Round  Tower  and  Sepulchre,  which  a  grate- 
ful country  raised  to  her  best  and  noblest  son,  this  oration  was  delivered  under  an 
improvised  canopy,  before  an  audience  of  fifty  thousand  persons.] 

"  Wisdom  conducted  the  just  man  through  the  right  ways,  and  showed  him  the 
kingdom  of  God,  made  him  honorable  in  his  labors,  and  accomplished  his  works.  She 
kept  him  safe  from  his  enemies,  and  gave  him  a  strong  conflict,  that  be  might  over- 
come ;  and  in  bondage  she  left  him  not  till  she  brought  him  the  sceptre  of  the  king- 
dom, and  power  against  those  that  oppressed  him,  and  gave  him  everlasting  glory." — 
Wisdom  x. 

HESE  striking  words  of  the  inspired  writer  tell  us  the 
glorious  history  of  a  great  man  of  old,  the  father  and 
founder  of  a  great  people.  They  also  point  out  the 
true  source  of  his  greatness,  and  the  secret  of  his  suc- 
He  was  a  just  man,  and  the  spirit  of  wisdom  was  upon 
He  was  led  by  this  spirit  through  the  right  ways — 
that  is  to  say,  the  ways  of  truth  and  justice,  the  straight- 
forward paths  of  reason  and  obedience;  and  the  ends  of  his 
Mays,  the  object  ever  before  his  eyes,  was  "  the  kingdom  of  God," 
the  independence,  the  glory,  the  spiritual  freedom  of  the  chil- 
dren of  his  race.  A  high  and  holy  object  was  this,  a  grand  and 
a  noble  purpose,  which  wisdom  held  out  to  him  as  the  aim  of 
his  life  and  the  crown  of  his  days.  And  as  the  end  for  which  a 
man  labors  determines  all  things,  either  unto  shame  or  unto 
glory,  so  he,  who  labored  for  so  great  an  end,  "  the  kingdom  of 
God,"  was  made  "  honorable  in  his  labors  ;  "  and  the  source  of 
this  honor  was  also  the  secret  of  success,  for  he  "accomplished 
his  works."  But  in  the  midst  of  these  "  honorable  labors  "  the 
inspired  writer  tells  that  the  just  man's  path  was  beset  by 
enemies,  but  the  spirit  of  wisdom  which  guided  him  "  kept  him 


0' Council.  35 

safe  from  his  enemies,"  enabled  him  to  meet  their  violence  and 
their  wiles,  their  open  hatred  and  their  subtle  cunning,  to  over- 
come them,  and  to  baffle  them.  The  contest  was  long  ;  it  was 
"a  strong  conflict,"  which  was  given  to  him  only  that  he  might 
overcome,  and  so  be  worthy  to  be  crowned.  He  was  made  to 
taste  of  sorrow  ;  his  enemies  seemed  to  prevail ;  but  in  bandu 
the  spirit  of  wisdom,  truth,  and  justice  forsook  him  not,  "  till 
she  brought  him  the  sceptre  of  the  kingdom,"  the  love  and  ven- 
eration of  his  brethren  and  of  his  people,  "and  power  against 
those  that  oppressed  him,"  the  power  of  principle  and  of  justice, 
and  so  changed  his  sorrow  into  joy,  "  and  gave  him  everlasting 
glory" — glory  on  the  earth,  in  the  history  and  traditions  of  his 
people,  where  his  name  was  in  honor  and  benediction,  and  his 
memory  enshrined  in  their  love,  and  the  higher  glory,  the  ever- 
lasting glory  "  of  the  kingdom  of  God,"  for  which  he  had  labored 
so  honorably,  so  successfully,  and  so  long.  Now,  all  this  honor, 
triumph,  and  everlasting  glory  came  to  the  great  Israelite 
through  the  spirit  of  wisdom,  the  same  spirit  of  which  it  is  writ- 
ten elsewhere,  "  that  it  can  do  all  things,  .  .  .  that  it  reneweth 
all  things,  ...  and  through  nations  conveyeth  itself  into  holy 
souls,  and  maketh  the  friends  of  God  and  the  prophets  " — "  the 
friends  of  God,"  that  is  to  say,  the  defenders  of  His  Church 
and  of  His  faith  ;  and  "  prophets,"  that  is,  the  leaders  of  His 
people. 

The  destinies  of  nations  are  in  the  hands  of  God,  and  when 
the  hour  of  His  mercy  comes,  and  a  nation  is  to  regain  the  first 
of  its  rights,  the  free  exercise  of  its  faith  and  religion,  God, 
who  is  never  wanting  to  His  own  designs,  ever  provides  for 
that  hour  a  leader  for  His  people,  such  a  one  as  my  text  de- 
scribes— wise,  high-minded,  seeking  the  kingdom  of  God,  hon- 
orable in  his  labors,  strong  in  cpnflict  with  his  enemies,  tri 
umphant  in  the  issue,  and  crowned  with  glory.  Nor  was  Ireland 
forgotten  in  the  designs  of  God.  Centuries  of  patient  endur- 
ance brought  at  length  the  dawn  of  a  better  day.  God's  hour 
came,  and  it  brought  with  it  Ireland's  greatest  soft,  Daniel 
O'Connell.  We  surround  his  grave  to-day,  to  pay  him  a  last 
tribute  of  love,  to  speak  words  of  praise,  of  suffrage,  and  of 
prayer.  For  two  and  twenty  years  has  he  silently  slept  in  the 
midst  of  us.  His  generation  is  passing  away,  and  the  light  of 
history  already  dawns  upon  his  grave,  and  she  speaks  his  name 


36  O'Connell. 

with  cold,  unimpassioned  voice.     In  this  age  of  ours  a  few  years 
are  as  a  century  of  times  gone  by.     Great  changes  and  startling 
events  follow  each   other  in  such   quick   succession   that   the  . 
greatest  names  are  forgotten  almost  as  soon  as  those  who  bore 
them  disappear,  and  the  world  itself  is  surprised  to  find  how 
short-lived  is  the  fame  which  promised  to  be  immortal.     He 
who  is  inscribed  even  in  the  golden  book  of  the  world's  annals 
finds  that  he   has   but   written  his    name   upon   water.      The 
Church  alone  is  the  true  shrine  of  immortality,  the  temple  of 
fame  which  perisheth  not ;  and  that  man  only  whose  name  and 
memory  is  preserved  in  her  sanctuaries  receives  on  this  earth  a 
reflection  of  that  glory  which  is  eternal  in  heaven.     But  before 
the   Church  will  crown  any  one  of  her  children,  she  carefully 
examines  his  claims  to  the  immortality  of  her  gratitude  and 
praise — she   asks,    What  has   he  done  for  God  and  for  man? 
This  great  question  am  I   come  here  to  answer  to-day  for  him 
whose  tongue,  once  so  eloquent,  is  now  stilled  in  the  silence  of 
the  grave,  and  over  whose  tomb  a  grateful  country  has  raised  a 
monument  of  its  ancient  faith  and  a  record  of  its  past  glories ; 
and  I  claim  for  him  the  meed  of  our  gratitude  and  love,  in  that 
he  was  a  man  of  faith,  whom   wisdom   guided    in  "  the  right 
ways,"  who  loved  and   sought    "  the  kingdom  of  God,"  who 
was  most  "  honorable  in  his  labors,"  and  who  accomplished  his 
"great  works;"    the   liberator   of  his   race,   the   father  of  his 
people,  the  conqueror  in  "  the  undefiled  conflict  "  of  principle, 
truth,  and  justice.     No  man  of  our  day.  denies  that  Ireland  has 
been  a  most  afflicted  country ;  but  seldom  was  her  dark  hour 
darker,  or  her  affliction  greater,  than  towards  the  close  of  the 
last  century.     The  nation's  heart  seemed  broken,  and  all  her 
hopes    extinguished.      The  Catholics   of   Ireland   were   barely 
allowed  to  live,  and  were  expected  to  be  grateful  even  for  the 
boon  of  existence ;  but  the  profession  of  the  Catholic  faith  was 
a  complete  bar  and  an  insurmountable  obstacle  to  all  advance- 
ment in  the  path   of  worldly  advantage,  honor,   dignity,  and 
even  wealth.     The  fetters  of  conscience  hung  heavily  also  upon 
genius,  and  every  prize-to  which  lawful  ambition  might  aspire 
was  beyond  the  reach  of  those  who  refused  to  deny  the  religion 
of  their  fathers,   and   to   forget  their   country.      Amongst  the 
victims  of  this  religious  and  intellectual  slavery  was  one  who 
was  marked  amongst  the  youth  of  his  time.     Of  birth  which 


CConnell.  37 

in  other  lands  would  be  called  noble,  gifted  with  a  powerful  and 
comprehensive  intelligence,  a  prodigious  memory,  a  most  fertile 
imagination,  pouring  forth  its  images  in  a  vein  of  richest  oratory, 
a  generous  spirit,  a  most  tender  heart,  enriched  with  stores  of 
varied  learning,  and  genius  of  the  highest  kind,  graced  with 
every  form  of  manly  beauty,  strength,  and  vigor,  of  powerful 
frame — nothing  seemed  wanting  to  him — 

*  A  combination  and  a  form  indeed 
Where  every  god  did  seem  to  set  his  seal, 
To  give  the  world  assurance  of  a  man  " — 

yet  all  seemed  to  be  lost  in  him,  for  he  was  born  a  Catholic  and 
an  Irishman.  Before  him  now  stretched,  full  and  broad,  the 
two  ways  of  life,  and  he  must  choose  between  them :  the  way 
which  led  to  all  that  the  world  prized — wealth,  power,  distinc- 
tion, title,  glory,  and  fame;  the  way  of  genius,  the  noble  rivalry 
of  intellect,  the  association  with  all  that  was  most  refined  and 
refining — the  way  which  led  up  to  the  council  chambers  of  the 
nation,  to  all  places  of  jurisdiction  and  of  honor,  to  the 
temples  wherein  were  enshrined  historic  names  and  glorious 
memories,  to  a  share  in  all  blessings  of  privilege  and  freedom. 
The  stirrings  of  genius,  the  promptings  of  youthful  ambition, 
the  consciousness  of  vast  intellectual  power,  which  placed 
within  his  easy  grasp  the  highest  prizes  to  which  "  the  last 
infirmity  of  noble  minds  "  could  aspire — all  this  impelled  him 
to  enter  upon  the  bright  and  golden  path.  But  before  him 
opened  another  way.  No  gleam  of  sunshine  illumined  this 
way ;  it  was  wet  with  tears — it  was  overshadowed  by  misfor- 
tune— //  was  pointed  out  to  the  yoimg  traveller  of  life  by  the 
sign  of  the  cross,  and  he  who  entered  it  was  bidden  to  leave  all 
hope  behind  him,  for  it  led  through  the  valley  of  humiliation 
into  the  heart  of  a  fallen  race  and  an  enslaved  and  afflicted 
people.  I  claim  for  O'Connell  the  glory  of  having  chosen  the 
latter  path,  and  this  claim  no  man  can  gainsay,  for  it  is  the 
argument  of  the  apostle  in  favor  of  the  great  lawgiver  of  old — 
"  By  faith  Moses  denied  himself  to  be  the  son  of  Pharaoh's 
daughter ;  rather  choosing  to  be  afflicted  with  the  people  of 
God  than  to  have  the  pleasure  of  sin  for  a  time — esteeming  the 
reproach  of  Christ  greater  riches  than  the  treasure  of  the 
Egyptians."  Into  this  way  was  he  led  by  his  love  for  his 
religion    and    for   his    country.      He    firmly    believed    in    that 


38  O' Council. 

religion  in  which  he  was  born.  He  had  that  faith  which  is 
common  to  all  Catholics,  and  which  is  not  merely  a  strong 
opinion  or  even  a  conviction,  but  an  absolute  and  most 
certain  knowledge  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  the  one  and 
only  true  messenger  and  witness  of  God  upon  the  earth  ;  that 
to  belong  to  her  communion  and  to  possess  her  faith  is  the  first 
and  greatest  of  all  endowments  and  privileges,  before  which 
everything  else  sinks  into  absolute  nothing.  He  believed  and 
knew  that  it  was  not  enough  for  him  to  "  believe  in  his  heart 
unto  justice,"  but  that  he  must  "  confess  with  his  mouth  untc 
salvation,"  and  the  strength  of  his  faith  left  him  no  alternative 
but  to  proclaim  loudly  his  religion,  and  to  cast  in  his  lot  with 
his  people.  That  religion  was  this  people's  only  inheritance. 
They  had  clung  to  it  and  preserved  it  with  a  love  and  fidelity 
altogether  superhuman,  and  which  was  the  wonder  of  the 
world.  The  teaching  of  the  Catholic  Church  was  accepted 
cheerfully  by  the  Irish  people  when  it  was  first  preached  to 
them.  They  took  it  kindly  and  at  once  from  the  lips  of  their 
apostle,  and  Ireland  was  a  grand  exception  to  all  the  nations, 
where  the  seed  of  Christianity  has  ever  been  the  martyr's  blood. 
The  faith  thus  delivered  to  them  they  so  illustrated  by  their 
sanctity  that  for  a  thousand  years  Catholic  Ireland  was  the 
glory  of  Christendom,  and  received  amongst  the  nations  the 
singular  title  of  the  "  Island  of  Saints." 

Our  national  history  begins  with  our  faith,  and  is  so  inter- 
woven with  our  holy  religion,  that  if  you  separate  these,  our 
country's  name  disappears  from  the  world's  annals  ;  whilst,  on 
the  other  hand,  Ireland  Christian  and  Catholic,  which  means 
Ireland  holy,  Ireland  evangelizing,  Ireland  teaching  the  nations 
of  Europe,  Ireland  upholding  in  every  land  the  Cross  and  the 
crown,  Ireland  suffering  for  her  faith  as  people  never  suffered, 
has  her  name  written  in  letters  of  gold  upon  the  proudest  page 
of  history.  Ireland  and  her  religion  were  so  singularly  bound 
together,  that  in  days  of  prosperity  and  peace  they  shone 
together;  in  days  of  sorrow  and  shame  they  sustained  one 
another.  When  the  ancient  religion  was  driven  from  her 
sanctuaries,  she  still  found  a  temple  in  every  cabin  in  the 
land,  an  altar  and  a  home  in  the  heart  of  every  Irishman. 
When  the  war  of  conquest  degenerated  into  a  war  of  exter- 
mination, the  faith,  and  the  faith  alone,  became  to  the  Irish 


OConnell.  39 

race  the  principle  of  their  vitality  and  national  existence,  the 
only  element  of  freedom  and  of  hope.  To  their  Church,  suffer- 
ing and  proscribed,  they  remained  faithful  as  in  the  days  of  her 
glory.  Their  Catholic  religion  became  the  strongest  passion  of 
their  lives,  and  in  their  love  for  their  great  suffering  mothei 
they  said  to  her  : 

"  Through  grief  and  through  danger  thy  smile  hath  cheer'd  my  way, 
Till  hope  seem'd  to  bud  from  each  thorn  that  round  me  lay ; 
The  darker  our  fortune  the  brighter  our  pure  love  burn'd, 
Till  shame  into  glory,  till  fear  into  zeal  was  turn'd ; 
Yes,  slave  as  I  was,  in  thy  arms  my  spirit  felt  free, 
And  blessed  even  the  sorrows  that  made  me  more  dear  to  thee." 

All  this  O'Connell  felt  and  knew.  He  was  Irish  of  the  Irish, 
and  Catholic  of  the  Catholic.  His  love  for  religion  and  coun- 
try was  as  the  breath  of  his  nostrils,  the  blood  of  his  veins ; 
and  when  he  brought  to  the  service  of  both  the  strength  of  his 
faith  and  the  power  of  his  genius,  with  the  instinct  of  a  true 
Irishman  his  first  thought  was  to  lift  up  the  nation  by  striking 
the  chains  off  the  national  Church.  And  here  again,  my 
brethren,  two  ways  opened  before  him.  One  was  a  way  in 
which  many  had  trodden  in  former  times,  many  pure  and  high- 
minded,  noble  and  patriotic  men ;  it  was  a  way  of  danger  and 
of  blood,  and  the  history  of  his  country  told  him  that  it  ever 
ended  in  defeat  and  in  greater  evil.  The  sad  events  which  he 
himself  witnessed,  and  which  took  place  around  him,  warned 
him  off  that  way ;  for  he  saw  that  the  effort  to  walk  in  it  had 
swept  away  the  last  vestige  of  Ireland's  national  legislature  and 
independence.  But  another  path  was  still  open  to  him,  and 
wisdom  pointed  it  out  as  "  the  right  way."  Another  battle- 
field lay  before  him,  on  which  he  could  "  fight  the  good  fight," 
and  vindicate  all  the  rights  of  his  religion  and  of  his  country. 
The  armory  was  furnished  him  by  the  inspired  apostle  when 
he  said :  "  Brethren,  our  wrestling  is  net  against  flesh  and 
blood,  but  against  principalities  and  powers.  .  .  .  There- 
fore take  unto  you  the  armor  of  God.  .  .  .  Having  your 
loins  girt  about  with  truth,  and  having  on  the  breastplate  of 
Justice,  and  your  feet  shod  with  the  preparation  of  the  Gospel 
of  Peace,  in  all  things  taking  the  shield  of  faith.  .  .  .  And 
take  unto  you  the  sword  of  the  spirit,  which  is  the  Word." 
O'Connell  knew  well  that  such  weapons  in  such  a  hand  as  his 


40  GConnell. 

were  irresistible — that,  girt  round  with  the  truth  and  justice  of 
his  cause,  he  was  clad  in  the  armor  of  the  Eternal  God ;  that; 
with  words  of  peace  and  order  on  his  lips,  with  the  strong 
shield  of  faith  before  him  and  the  sword  of  eloquent  speech  in 
his  hand,  with  the  war-cry  of  obedience,  principle,  and  law,  no 
power  on  earth  could  resist  him. 

"  Such  a  battle,  once  begun, 
Though  baffled  oft,  is  ever  won  " 

for  it  is  the  battle  of  God,  and  nothing  can  resist  the  Most 
High.  Accordingly,  he  raised  the  standard  of  the  new  war, 
and  unfurled  the  banner  on  which  was  written,  freedom  to  be 
achieved  by  the  power  of  truth,  the  cry  of  justice,  the  assertion 
of  right,  and  the  omnipotence  of  the  law.  Religious  liberty 
and  perfect  legal  equality  was  his  first  demand.  The  new  apos- 
tle of  freedom  went  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  Ireland. 
His  eloquent  words  revived  the  hopes  and  stirred  up  the  ener- 
gies of  the  nation  ;  the  people  and  their  priesthood  rallied  around 
him  as  one  man  ;  they  became  most  formidable  to  their  enemies 
by  the  might  of  justice  and  reason,  and  they  showed  themselves 
worthy  of  liberty  by  their  respect  for  the  law.  Never  was  Ire- 
land more  excited,  yet  never  was  Ireland  more  peaceful.  The 
people  were  determined  on  gaining  their  religious  freedom.  Irish- 
men, from  1822  to  1829,  were  as  fiercely  determined,  on  their 
new  battlefield,  as  they  had  been  in  the  breaches  of  Limerick 
or  on  the  slopes  of  Fontenoy.  They  were  marshalled  by  a 
leader  as  brave  as  Sarsfield  and  as  daring  as  Red  Hugh.  He 
led  them  against  the  strongest  citadel  in  the  world,  and  even  as 
the  walls  of  the  city  of  old  crumbled  to  dust  at  the  sound  of 
Israel's  trumpet,  so,  at  the  sound  of  his  mighty  voice,  who  spoke 
in  the  name  of  a  united  people,  "  the  lintels  of  the  doors  were 
moved,"  and  the  gates  were  opened  which  three  hundred  years 
of  prejudice  and  pride  had  closed  and  barred  against  our  people. 
The  first  decree  of  our  liberation  went  forth :  on  the  1 3th  of  April, 
1829,  Catholic  Emancipation  was  proclaimed,  and  seven  millions 
of  Catholic  Irishmen  entered  the  nation's  legislature  in  the  per- 
son of  O'Connell.  It  was  the  first  and  the  greatest  victory  of 
peaceful  principle  which  our  age  has  witnessed,  the  grandest 
triumph  of  justice  and  of  truth,  the  most  glorious  victory  of  the 
genius  of  one  man,  and  the  first  great  act  of  homage  which 


0' Council.  41 

Ireland's  rulers  paid  to  the  religion  of  the  people,  and  which  Ire- 
land's people  paid  to  the  great  principle  of  peaceful  agitation. 

O'Connell's  first  and  greatest  triumph  was  the  result  of  his 
strong  faith  and  his  ardent  zeal  for  his  religion  and  his  Church. 
The  Church  was  to  him,  as  it  is  to  us,  "  the  kingdom  of  God," 
and  in  his  labors  for  it,  "  he  was  made  honorable,"  and  received 
from  a  grateful  people  the  grandest  title  ever  given  to  man. 
Ireland  called  him  "  the  Liberator."  He  was  "  honorable  in  his 
labors,"  when  we  consider  the  end  which  he  proposed  to  him- 
self. It  was  no  selfish  nor  even  purely  human  end  which  he  put 
before  him.  He  devoted  himself,  his  time,  his  talents,  his  ener- 
gies, his  power,  to  the  glory  of  God,  to  the  liberation  of  God's 
Church,  to  the  emancipation  of  his  people.  This  was  the  glori- 
ous end ;  nor  were  the  means  less  honorable.  Fair,  open, 
manly  self-assertion  ;  high  solemn  appeal  to  eternal  principles  ; 
noble  and  unceasing  proclamation  of  rights  founded  in  justice 
and  in  the  constitution  ;  peaceful  but  most  powerful  pressure  of 
a  people  united  by  his  genius,  inflamed  by  his  eloquence,  and 
guided  by  his  vast  knowledge  and  wisdom — these  were  the 
honorable  means  by  which  he  accomplished  his  great  work,  and 
this  great  work  was  the  achievement  which  gained  for  him  not 
only  the  title  of  the  Liberator  of  Ireland,  but  even  the  oecumeni- 
cal title  of  the  Liberator  of  Christ's  Church.  "  Were  it  only  to 
Ireland,"  says  the  great  Lacordaire,  "  that  Emancipation  has 
been  profitable,  where  is  the  man  in  the  Church  who  has  freed 
at  once  seven  millions  of  souls?  Challenge  your  recollection, 
search  history  from  that  first  and  famous  edict  which  granted 
to  the  Christians  liberty  of  conscience,  and  see  if  there  are  to 
be  found  many  such  acts,  comparable  by  the  extent  of  their 
effects  with  that  of  Catholic  Emancipation.  Seven  millions  of 
souls  are  now  free  to  serve  and  love  God  even  to  the  end  of 
time  ;  and  each  time  that  this  people,  advancing  in  their  existence 
and  their  liberty,  shall  recall  to  memory  the  aspect  of  the  man 
who  studied  the  secret  of  their  ways,  they  will  ever  find  inscribed 
the  name  of  O'Connell,  both  on  the  latest  pages  of  their  servi- 
tude and  on  the  first  of  their  regeneration."  His  glorious  vic- 
tor}'' did  honor  even  to  those  whom  he  vanquished.  He  honored 
them  by  appealing  to  their  sense  of  justice  and  of  right ;  and 
in  the  act  of  Catholic  Emancipation,  England  acknowledged 
*he  power  of  a  people,  not  asking  for  mercy,  but  clamoring  for 


42  O'Connelt. 

the  liberty  of  the  soul,  the  blessing  which  was  born  with  Christ, 
and  which  is  the  inheritance  of  the  nations  that  embrace  the 
Cross.  Catholic  Emancipation  was  but  the  herald  and  the  begin- 
ning of  victories.  He  who  was  the  Church's  liberator  and  most 
true  son,  was  also  the  first  of  Ireland's  statesmen  and  patriots. 
Our  people  remember  well,  as  their  future  historian  will  faithfully 
record,  the  many  trials  borne  for  them,  the  many  victories  gained 
in  their  cause,  the  great  life  devoted  to  them  by  O'Connell. 
Lying,  however,  at  the  foot  of  the  altar,  as  he  is  to-day,  whilst 
the  Church  hallows  his  grave  with  prayer  and  sacrifice,  it  is 
more  especially  as  the  Catholic  Emancipator  of  his  people  that 
we  place  a  garland  on  his  tomb.  It  is  as  a  child  of  the  Church 
that  we  honor  him,  and  recall  with  tears  of  sorrow  our  recollec- 
tions of  the  aged  man,  revered,  beloved,  whom  all  the  glory  of  the 
world's  admiration  and  the  nation's  love  had  never  lifted  up  in 
soul  out  of  the  holy  atmosphere  of  Christian  humility  and  sim- 
plicity. Obedience  to  the  Church's  laws,  quick  zeal  for  her 
honor  and  the  dignity  of  her  worship ;  a  spirit  of  penance,  re- 
fining whilst  it  expiated,  chastening  whilst  it  ennobled,  all  that 
was  natural  in  the  man;  constant  and  frequent  use  of  the 
Church's  holy  sacraments,  which  shed  the  halo  of  grace  round 
his  venerated  head— these  were  the  last  grand  lessons  which  he 
left  to  his  people,  and  thus  did  the  sun  of  his  life  set  in  the  glory 
of  Christian  holiness.  For  Ireland  he  lived,  for  Ireland  did  he 
die.  The  people  whom  he  had  so  faithfully  served,  whom  he 
loved  with  a  love  second  only  to  his  love  for  God,  were  deci- 
mated by  a  visitation  the  most  terrible  that  the  world  ever  wit- 
nessed ;  the  nations  of  the  earth  trembled,  and  men  grew  pale 
at  the  sight  of  Ireland's  desolation.  Her  tale  of  famine,  of 
misery,  of  death,  was  told  in  every  land.  Her  people  fled 
affrighted  from  the  soil  which  had  forgotten  its  ancient  bounty, 
or  died,  their  white  lips  uttering  the  last  faint  cry  for  bread. 
All  this  the  aged  father  of  his  country  beheld.  Neither  his 
genius,  nor  his  eloquence,  nor  his  love,  could  now  save  his  peo- 
ple, and  the  spirit  was  crushed  which  had  borne  him  triumph- 
antly through  all  dangers  and  toil ;  the  heart  broke  within  him, 
that  brave  and  generous  heart  which  had  never  known  fear,  and 
whose  ruling  passion  was  love  for  Ireland.  The  martyred  spirit, 
the  broken  heart  of  the  great  Irishman  led  him  to  the  holiest 
spot  of  earth,  and  with  tottering  steps  he  turned  to  Rome 


(JComiell.  43 

The  man  whose  terrible  voice  in  life  shook  the  highest  tribunals 
of  earth  in  imperious  demand  for  justice  to  Ireland,  now  sought 
the  apostles'  tomb,  that,  from  that  threshold  of  heaven  he 
might  put  up  a  cry  for  mercy  to  his  country  and  his  people,  and 
offer  up  his  life  for  his  native  land.  Like  the  Prophet  King,  he 
would  fain  stand  between  the  people  and  the  angel  who  smote 
them,  and  offer  himself  a  victim  and  holocaust  for  the  land 
which  he  loved.  But  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  the 
weary  traveller  lay  down  to  die.  At  that  last  moment,  his  pro- 
found knowledge  of  his  country's  history  may  have  given  him 
that  prophetic  glimpse  of  the  future  which  is  sometimes  vouch- 
safed to  great  minds.  He  had  led  a  mighty  nation  to  the 
opening  of  "  the  right  way,"  and  directed  her  first  and  doubtful 
steps  in  the  path  of  conciliation  and  justice  to  Ireland.  Time, 
which  ever  works  out  the  designs  of  God,  has  carried  that 
nation  forward  in  the  glorious  way.  With  firmer  step,  with 
undaunted  soul,  with  high  resolve  of  justice,  peace,  and  con- 
ciliation, the  work  begun  by  Ireland's  Liberator  progresses  in 
our  day.  Chains  are  being  forged  for  our  country,  but  they  are 
chains  of  gold,  to  bind  up  all  discordant  elements  in  the  empire, 
so  that  all  men  shall  dwell  together  as  brothers  in  the  land.  If 
7/e  cannot  have  the  blessings  of  religious  unity  so  as  "  to  be  all 
cf  one  mind,"  we  shall  have  "  the  next  dearest  blessing  that 
heaven  can  give,"  the  peace  that  springs  from  perfect  religious 
liberty  and  equality.  All  this  do  we  owe  to  the  man  whose 
memory  we  recall  to-day,  to  the  principles  which  he  taught  us, 
which  illustrate  his  life,  and  which,  in  the  triumph  of  Catholic 
Emancipation,  pointed  out  to  the  Irish  people  the  true  secret 
of  their  strength,  the  true  way  of  progress,  and  the  sure  road 
to  victory.  The  seed  which  his  hand  had  sown  it  was  not  given 
to  him  to  reap  in  its  fullness.  Catholic  Emancipation  was  but 
the  first  installment  of  liberty.  The  edifice  of  religious  freedom 
was  to  be  crowned  when  the  wise  architect  who  had  laid  its 
foundations  and  built  up  the  walls  was  in  his  grave.  Let  us 
hope  that  his  dying  eyes  were  cheered  and  the  burden  of  his 
last  hour  lightened  by  the  sight  of  the  perfect  grandeur  of  his 
work — that,  like  the  Prophet  lawgiver,  he  beheld  "  all  the  land  ;" 
— that  he  saw  it  with  his  eyes,  though  he  did  not  "  pass  over 
to  it ;"  and  that  it  was  given  to  him  to  "salute  from  afar  off" 
the  brightness  of  the  day  which  he  was  never  to  enjoy.     The 


44  O"  Connell. 

dream  of  his  life  is  being  realized  to-day.  He  had  ever  sighed 
to  be  able  to  extend  to  his  Protestant  fellow-countrymen  the 
hand  of  perfect  friendship,  which  only  exists  where  there  is  per- 
fect equality,  and  to  enter  with  them  into  the  compact  of  the 
true  peace  which  is  founded  in  justice.  Time,  which  buries  in 
utter  oblivion  so  many  names  and  so  many  memories,  will  ex- 
alt him  in  his  work.  The  day  has  already  dawned  and  is  ripen- 
ing to  its  perfect  noon  when  Irishmen  of  every  creed  will 
remember  O'Connell,  and  celebrate  him  as  the  common  friend 
and  the  greatest  benefactor  of  their  country.  What  man  is  there, 
even  of  those  whom  our  age  has  called  great,  whose  name,  so 
many  years  after  his  death,  could  summon  so  many  loving  hearts 
around  his  tomb  ?  We  to-day  are  the  representatives  not  only 
of  a  nation  but  of  a  race.  "  Qucenam  regio  in  terris  nostri  ttou 
plena  laboris  ?  "  Where  is  the  land  that  has  not  seen  the  face 
of  our  people  and  heard  their  voice  ?  and  wherever,  even  to 
the  ends  of  the  earth,  an  Irishman  is  found  to-day,  his  spirit 
and  his  sympathy  are  here.  The  millions  of  America  are  with 
us — the  Irish  Catholic  soldier  on  India's  plains  is  present 
amongst  us  by  the  magic  of  love — the  Irish  sailor,  standing  by 
the  wheel  this  moment  in  far-off  silent  seas,  where  it  is  night, 
and  the  southern  stars  are  shining,  joins  his  prayer  with  ours, 
and  recalls  the  glorious  image  and  the  venerated  name  of 
O'Connell. 

"  He  is  gone  who  seemed  so  great — 
Gone  ;  but  nothing  can  bereave  him 
Of  the  force  he  made  his  own 
Being  here,  and  we  believe  him 
Something  far  advanced  in  state, 
And  that  he  wears  a  truer  crown 
Than  any  wreath  that  man  can  weave  him." 

He  is  gone,  but  his  fame  shall  live  for  ever  on  the  earth  as  a 
lover  of  God  and  of  his  people.  Adversaries,  political  and  re- 
ligious, he  had  many,  and  like  a 

"  Tower  of  strength 
Which  stood  full  square  to  all  the  winds  that  blew," 

the  Hercules  of  justice  and  of  liberty  stood  up  against  them 
Time,  which  touches  all  things  with  mellowing  hand,  has  soft- 
ened the  recollections  of  past  contests,  and  they  who  once 
looked  upon  him  as  a  foe  now  only  remember  the  glory  of 


aConnell.  45 

the  fight,  and  the  mighty  genius  of  him  who  stood  forth  the 
representative  man  of  his  race,  and  the  champion  of  his  people. 
They  acknowledge  his  greatness,  and  they  join  hands  with  us 
to  weave  the  garland  of  his  fame.  But  far  other,  higher,  and 
holier  are  the  feelings  of  Irish  Catholics  all  the  world  over  to- 
>  day.  They  recognize,  in  the  dust  which  we  are  assembled  to 
honor,  the  powerful  arm  which  promoted,  them,  the  eloquent 
tongue  which  proclaimed  their  rights  and  asserted  their  freedom, 
the  strong  hand  which,  like  that  of  the  Maccabee  of  old,  first  struck 
off  their  chains,  and  then  built  up  their  holy  altars.  They, 
mingling  the  supplication  of  prayer  and  the  gratitude  of  suf- 
frage, with  their  tears,  recall — oh,  with  how  much  love ! — the 
memory  of  him  who  was  a  Joseph  to  Israel — their  tower  of 
strength,  their  buckler,  and  their  shield — who  shed  around  their 
homes,  their  altars,  and  their  graves  the  sacred  light  of  religious 
liberty,  and  the  glory  of  unfettered  worship.  "  His  praise  is 
in  the  Church,"  and  this  is  the  surest  pledge  of  the  immortality 
of  his  glory.  "  A  people's  voice"  may  be  "  the  proof  and  echo 
of  all  human  fame,"  but  the  voice  of  the  undying  Church  is 
the  echo  of  "  everlasting  glory,"  and  when  those  who  surround 
his  grave  to-day  shall  have  passed  away,  all  future  generations 
of  Irishmen  to  the  end  of  time  will  be  reminded  of  his  name 
and  of  his  glory. 


THE  SOLEMN  TRIDUUM. 


[Preached  in  the  Pro-Cathedral,  Marlborough  Street,  Dublin,  on  Sunday,  Septen> 
ber  12th,  before  His  Eminence  Cardinal  Cullen  and  a  majority  of  the  Episcopate  of 
Ireland,  on  the  occasion  of  the  Solemn  Triduum  to  offer  thanks  to  God  for  the  dis- 
establishment of  the  Anglican  Church  in  Ireland.] 

The  Gospel  of  this  day,  the  seventeenth  Sunday  after  Pentecost,  is  taken  from 
Matthew  xxii.  35-46.  "At  that  time  :  The  Pharisees  came  to  Jesus  ;  '  and  one  of  them 
a  doctor  of  the  law,  asked  Him,  tempting  Him:  Master,  which  is  the  great  com- 
mandment in  the  law  ?  Jesus  said  to  him :  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with 
thy  whole  heart,  and  with  thy  whole  soul,  and  with  thy  whole  mind.  This  is  the 
greatest  and  the  first  commandment.  Ami  the  second  is  like  to  thii  :  Thou  shalt 
love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself.  On  these  two  commandments  dependeth  the  whole 
law  and  the  prophets.  And  the  Pharisees  being  gathered  together,  Jesus  asked  them, 
saying;  What  think  you  of  Christ,  whose  Son  is  He?  They  say  to  Him,  David's. 
He  saith  to  them :  How  then  doth  David  in  spirit  call  Him  Lord,  saying :  The  Lord 
said  to  my  Lord,  Sit  on  my  right  hand,  until  I  make  Thy  enemies  Thy  footstool  ?  If 
David  then  call  Him  Lord,  how  is  He  his  son?  And  no  man  was  able  to  answer 
Him  a  word :  neither  durst  any  man  from  that  day  forth  ask  Him  any  more  ques- 
tions.' " 

AY  it  please  your  Eminence, — Beloved  brethren.  In 
the  important  portion  of  the  Gospel  which  I  have  j'ust 
read  for  you  we  find  Christ  our  Lord  declaring  the 
great  truth,  that  His  religion  is  a  religion  of  love,  its 
commandments  and  all  its  spirit  resting  upon  two  great  duties 
of  love — first  to  God,  "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with 
thy  whole  soul,  and  with  thy  whole  mind  ;  "  secondly,  to  your 
neighbor,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  We  are 
assembled  here  to-day,  my  brethren,  for  a  specific  purpose,  and 
that  is,  in  all  humility  and  gratitude,  to  give  thanks  to  Almighty 
God  at  His  own  altar,  in  the  oblation  to  Him  of  his  Divine  and 
Adorable  Son,  for  the  great  benefit  which  we  have  received,  for 
the  great  blessing  which  has  been  conferred  upon  us  as  a  nation, 
in  the  redress  of  a  long-standing  wrong.  It  may  seem  that  this 
very  assembling, — that  this  putting  forth  our  voices  in  praise,  is 


The  Solemn   Triduum.  47 

a  violation  of  the  Gospel  of  love  which  is  upon  our  lips  this  day ; 
yet  it  is  not  so.  Nay,  more — it  is  out  of  our  love  of  God  and 
of  our  faith  ;  it  is  out  of  our  love  of  our  neighbor,  not  only  of 
those  who  are  in  the  household  of  the  faith  with  us,  but  also  of 
those  who,  separated  from  us  by  the  disunion  of  religious  belief, 
have  not  the  same  sacrifice,  nor  the  same  sacraments,  nor  the 
same  doctrines  as  ours,  yet  are  our  neighbors — it  is,  I  say,  out 
of  our  love  of  God  and  of  man  that  the  Holy  Church  of  Christ, 
speaking  to  us  by  the  voice  of  our  chief  pastor  here,  assembles 
us  this  day  for  the  purpose  of  offering  our  thanks  to  God.  Our 
love  of  God  necessarily  obliges  us  to  rejoice  when  we  see  the 
cause  of  God,  the  cause  of  religious  truth,  the  cause  of  right  and 
justice,  proclaimed  before  all  men;  yet  in  our  love  of  God  we 
do  not  forget  the  great  duties  that  are  involved  in  the  precept, 
"Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  These  duties  are 
three — first,  ardently  to  desire  our  neighbor's  spiritual  and  tem- 
poral welfare  ;  secondly,  to  forgive  freely,  generously,  nobly,  all 
injuries  we  have  received  at  our  neighbor's  hands  ;  thirdly,  ten- 
derly to  respect  our  neighbor's  feelings,  even  as  we  would  have 
our  own  feelings,  nay,  our  own  prejudices,  respected  and  con- 
sidered. We  do  not  violate  the  command  of  God  in  assembling 
before  His  altar  to-day,  for  I  claim  for  the  Catholics  of  Ireland 
■ — during  the  last  twelve  months  especially — this  glory,  that 
never  have  a  people  shown  themselves  more  generous,  more 
tender,  more  respectful  to  the  feelings  of  others  than  they  have. 
A  great  question  was  brought  before  the  Legislature  of  the 
kingdom — involving  what  certain  members  of  the  community 
considered  to  be  their  special  rights  and  legitimate  privileges, 
but  what  the  vast,  the  overpowering  majority  of  the  Irish  peo- 
ple looked  upon  as  a  great  evil,  a  great  insult,  and  a  great 
wrong.  That  question  was  agitated  warmly,  passionately ;  it 
was  viewed  in  all  its  relations,  held  up  before  the  world  in  its 
past  history,  in  its  present  influence,  in  its  future  consequences; 
but  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  viewed  it  not  as  a  great  political 
question,  but  rather  as  a  great  religious  question.  They  knew 
that,  far -more  than  in  all  political  questions,  in  religious  ques- 
tions men's  feelings  are  tender,  men's  prejudices  are  strong,  and 
accordingly  a  most  singular  instance  has  been  offered  to  the 
world  by  the  Catholics  of  Ireland,  of  forbearance,  of  generosity, 
of  calmness,  that  amounted  almost  to  the  apathy  of  which  we 


48  The  Solemn   Triduum. 

were  accused  by  those  who  disputed  the  great  question  before 
the  nation.  We  stood  aside.  We  seemed  to  be  rather  the  un- 
concerned spectators  than  the  people  whose  vital  interests  were 
at  stake,  and  whose  very  existence  for  the  future  was  to  be 
decided.  The  Catholic  bishops  and  clergy  of  Ireland  spoke  no 
word  of  threat — no  word  of  violence.  The  Catholic  people  of 
Ireland  were  silent  and  respectful.  No  agitation  shook  the 
land — no  menace  was  heard  from  them;  the  great'question  went 
forward,  disputed  and  argued  upon  its  own  merits,  and  whilst 
every  Irish  Catholic  heart  beat  with  anxiety,  whilst  united 
prayers  went  up  before  the  altar  of  God  from  every  Catholic 
household  in  the  land,  whilst  the  people  were  stirred  even  to 
their  very  hearts'  core,  yet  they  subdued  their  excitement,  they 
suppressed  the  violence  of  their  emotions,  they  were  silent";  and 
their  only  motive  for  this  extraordinary  calmness  and  silence 
was  their  respect  for  the  convictions,  the  prejudices,'  and,  above 
all,  the  feelings  of  their  Protestant  fellow-countrymen.  When 
judged  solely  upon  its  merits,  its  past  history,  its  present  rela- 
tions, its  future  consequences  upon  society  in  Ireland,  the  alien 
church  was  condemned ;  and  it  was  decreed,  in  the  spirit  that 
animated  Magna  Charta  of  old,  still  permeating  all  that  is  glori- 
ous in  the  constitution  of  Britain,  that  all  men  should  be  equal 
in  the  land.  When  this  greatest  of  victories  over  injustice  and 
wrong  was  achieved,  there  was  heard  no  voice  of  triumph  or  of 
exultation, — no  insulting  vaunt  over  the  conquered, — no  loud 
boast  that  henceforth  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  should  have  it  all 
their  own  way.  Oh,  no,  not  a  word.  Our  people  were  silent — 
silent  in  their  gratitude.  The  silence  of  excited  and  anxious 
hopes  passed  into  Christian  calmness  of  hopes  fulfilled.  Hence, 
if  any  voice  of  insult,  if  any  voice  of  threat  has  been  heard  in 
Ireland  during  the  contest  and  in  the  moment  of  victory,  I  assert 
that  that  voice  of  insult  and  threat  has  not  come  from  Catholic 
bishop,  priest,  or  layman — that  it  has  not  come  from  any  organ 
of  Catholic  opinion.  I  repeat,  whenever  the  voice  of  excite- 
ment, of  insult,  of  threat,  of  violence,  was  heard,  it  came  not 
from  us.  We  were  silent  in  the  hour  which  we  might,  perhaps, 
be  tempted  to  call  an  hour  of  national  triumph  for  Catholic 
Ireland, — we  were  silent  out  of  respect  for  the  feelings  of  our 
Protestant  fellow-countrymen, — giving  them  credit  for  all  con- 
sistency and  all  earnestness  in  their  opposition  to  us, — giving 


The  Solemn    Triduum.  49 

credit  to  Protestantism  for  its  spirit  of  justice  and  fair-play,  a", 
it  is  called, — recognizing  with  gratitude  the  advocacy  of  thoso 
of  that  creed  who  lent  a  hand  to  wipe  out  a  great  and  long- 
standing wrong,  and  apparently  forgetful  of  the  mighty  fact  that 
it  was  Ireland's  faith — that  it  was  Ireland's  patience — that  it 
was  Ireland's  fortitude,  planted  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  by 
the  grace  of  Almighty  God,  that  achieved  this  wonderful  asser- 
tion of  the  people's  right — to  perfect  equality  and  freedom  in 
the  land  in  which  God  created  them,  and  which  He  willed 
should  be  theirs.  As  it  was,  during  the  twelve  months  of  sus- 
pense,— as  it  was,  when  the  great  act  of  redress  was  proclaimed 
to  be  the  law  of  the  land,  so  it  is  to-day  ;  for,  indeed,  it  would 
be  strange  if  those  who  were  so  temperate,  so  calm,  so  respect- 
ful outside  should  come  before  the  altar  of  God  to  speak  words 
of  vain  boasting  or  of  triumph  over  their  fellow-men.  No,  we 
are  far  more  grateful  to  God  than  jubilant  of  ourselves ;  and  no 
man  can  say,  reading  the  future  history  of  Ireland,  that  in  the 
tremendous  crisis  through  which  we  have  passed  our  people 
ever  lost  the  calmness,  the  tenderness,  the  generosity  of  the 
Christian  charity  which  should  animate  every  man  in  his  rela- 
tions with  his  neighbor.  Before  I  leave  this  point,  let  me  re- 
mind you  that  we  are  not  a  phlegmatic  race,  that  we  are  not 
accustomed  to  conceal  our  feelings.  The  Irish  heart  is  suscepti- 
ble, the  Irish  temperament  is  sanguine,  even  demonstrative. 
We  are  a  people  who  have  never  been  silent  or  contented  under 
a  great  wrong,  or  under  a  great  sorrow.  We  are  a  people  not 
prone  to  suppress  our  emotions  in  the  moment  of  national  grief 
or  joy.  Therefore,  the  influence  that  was  at  work  to  restrain 
the  exuberance  of  the  national  joy,  that  was  able  to  keep  an 
excited  and  excitable  people  calm  during  a  period  when  strong 
emotion  throbbed  through  every  pulse  in  the  land,  must  have 
been  a  powerful  influence ;  the  principle  and  motive  must  have 
been  great, — and  they  were  no  other,  I  say  again,  than  respect 
and  tenderness  and  generosity,  springing  from  true  Christian 
charity  and  love  of  our  neighbor.  In  the  same  spirit  we  assem- 
ble here  to-day  to  extend  our  sympathy  and  our  respect  to  all 
in  the  land, — to  offer  to  all  the  tribute  which  charity  obliges  a 
man  to  give  to  his  neighbor — for  our  love  for  our  neighbor 
obliges  us,  not  only  to  respect  his  feelings,  not  only  not  to  hurt 
them,  and  even  to  be  generous  to  his  prejudices,  but  it  also 

4 


50  The  Solemn   Triduunt. 

obliges  us  to  forgive  nobly  and  generously  whatever  injuries  we 
may  have  received  at  his  hands.  Such  is  the  spirit  of  the 
Christian  religion.  Revenge, — deep-seated,  thoughtful  revenge 
— revenge  brooding  over  a  wrong  that  has  been  committed,  and 
waiting  only  for  the  proper  moment  to  avenge  that  wrong — 
this  is  not  the  spirit  of  Christ,  nor  of  the  spouse  of  Christ,  the 
Holy  Catholic  Church.  She,  during  the  two  thousand  years  of 
her  history  upon  earth,  has  received  little  else  than  injury  and 
insult  at  the  hands  of  the  world.  Her  whole  history  may  be 
said  to  be  of  slights,  wrongs,  injuries,  and  insults,  received  and 
nobly  forgiven  by  the  holy  Church  of  God.  She  is  constantly 
going  forth  to  seek  the  souls  and  secure  the  salvation  even  of 
her  most  ungrateful  children  and  bitterest  enemies.  She  knows 
no  spirit  of  revenge.  If  the  man  who  was  her  greatest  enemy 
during  his  life — who  had  robbed  her  of  all  she  had  in  this  world, 
and  robbed  her,  still  more,  of  the  souls  of  her  children — if  that 
man  turns  to  her  in  the  hour  of  death,  and  stretches  out  his 
hand  to  her  for  succor,  she,  forgetting  all  his  insults,  all  his 
injuries,  hastens  to  his  side,  and  strives  to  save  his  soul  and 
secure  him  for  heaven  and  the  joys  of  God.  So  we  are  come 
here  to-day  to  give  thanks  for  the  great  benefit  we  have  received, 
which  will  result  in  this,  that  we  can  extend  to  our  Protestant 
fellow-citizens  and  fellow-countrymen  the  hand  of  friendship 
and  of  brotherly  love.  For  three  hundred  years  ascendency  in 
religion  has  been  the  curse  and  the  division  of  this  country  of 
ours ;  ascendency  in  religion,  by  which  a  small  minority  of  the 
people — scarcely  one-tenth  of  them — holding  all  the  religious 
endowments  of  the  country,  holding  all  the  political  power  of 
the  country,  holding  the  keys  of  the  Legislature,  demanded  to 
be  recognized  as  the  church  of  the  country  ;  and  nine-tenths  of 
the  people — the  vast  majority  of  the  nation — were  excluded  from 
all  recognition,  from  all  consideration  in  the  laws,  from  all  the 
possessions  and  endowments  granted  for  religious  purposes — 
excluded  from  place  and  power,  excluded  from  a  thousand  pre- 
rogatives and  privileges  ;  and  who  can  wonder  that  this  proud, 
massive  ascendency,  pressing  thus  on  the  great  body  of  the 
people,  should  create  a  spirit  of  bitterness,  of  alienation,  of  con- 
tempt on  part  of  the  privileged  few,  and  of  a  strong  temptation 
to  indignation  and  rage  on  part  of  the  thousan  is,  the  millions, 
thus  excluded  and  despised, — a  spirit  that  found  its  way  into 


The  Solemn    Triduum.  5 1 

every  relation  of  life, — and,  above  all,  a  spirit  which  was  a  per- 
fect obstacle  to  that  Christian  friendship,  to  that  social  union, 
to  that  equality  which  is  the  next  greatest  blessing  when  the 
grace  of  religious  unity  is  not  there.  Friendship  exists  only 
between  equals — a  man  does  not  make  a  friend  of  his  servant  or 
of  his  slave.  All  the  value  of  friendship,  all  the  value  of  the 
union  that  springs  from  it,  depends  on  the  equality  of  the  two 
men  who  join  hands  for  some  common  purpose,  and  who  have 
a  mutual  sympathy — the  tribute  of  one  man  to  the  other. 
Therefore,  so  long  as  the  baneful  ascendency,  now  happily 
swept  away,  existed  in  this  land,  there  could  not  be  between 
the  Catholic  and  the  Protestant  equality  of  friendship ;  for  the 
Protestant  was  legally,  civilly,  socially,  in  almost  every  relation, 
superior  to  his  Catholic  fellow-countryman.  The  consequence 
was  a  spirit  of  disunion  pervading  everywhere  in  social  life,  and 
unfortunately  too  in  the  public  councils,  with  most  evil  influ- 
ence on  the  destinies  of  the  country  which  was  the  common 
mother  of  all,  Catholic  and  Protestant  alike.  To-day  this  long- 
maintained  ascendency  has  been  swept  away  ;  and  to-day,  while 
we  offer  our  thanks  to  God  that  this  fatal  source  of  disunion, 
this  curse  on  our  land,  has  disappeared,  we  at  the  same  time 
offer  to  our  Protestant  fellow-citizens  the  sacred  tribute  which 
our  love  of  our  neighbor  obliges  us  to  give — namely,  a  true,  a 
noble,  a  generous,  a  forgetful  forgiveness  of  the  past.  But, 
perhaps,  men  may  say,  What  have  we  to  forgive  ?  During  the 
time  the  question  of  the  dis-establishment  and  dis-endowment 
of  the  Protestant  Church  was  before  the  Parliament,  if  we  con- 
sulted the  Protestant  press  of  the  country,  we  might  be  inclined 
to  think  that  all  the  injury  was  inflicted  by  us  on  them,  and 
consequently  that  it  is  they  who  have  to  forgive,  not  the  Cath- 
olics. Let  us  go  back,  if  we  have  to  answer  the  question,  What 
have  we  to  forgive  ?  What  have  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  to 
forgive  ?  We  shall  have  to  turn  back  page  after  page  of  a  blood- 
stained history  of  wrong  and  of  crime  for  three  hundred  years, 
— we  shall  have  to  recall  these  sad  annals  to  which  history  pro- 
duces no  equal, — we  shall  have  to  turn  back  on  that  history, 
written  in  the  tears  and  in  the  blood  of  our  afflicted  and  down- 
trodden  people,  who  have  suffered  more  wrong,  who  have  en- 
dured more  injury  than  any  people  of  whom  history  bears  its 
record  since  the  creation  of  the  world.     What  have  we  to  for. 


52  The  Solemn    Triduum. 

give  ?  Three  hundred  years  ago  the  Irish  people  were  united  in 
faith  as  one  man — the  Irish  people,  out  of  whose  faith  and  love 
came  the  splendor  of  that  holy  religion  which  was  as  dear  to 
them  as  their  life — out  of  whose  faith  and  love  came  the  noble 
cathedrals  and  colleges,  and  monasteries  and  churches  which 
covered  the  land,  and  made  Ireland,  even  in  the  hour  of  her 
national  fall,  the  glory  of  Christendom,  the  land  of  saints,  Cath- 
olic amongst  all  the  Catholic.  This  was  the  state  of  the  land 
three  hundred  years  ago.  Chieftains  and  people  alike  were  Cath- 
olic to  their  hearts'  core.  The  daily  Mass,  the  sacrifice,  the  sacra- 
ments of  the  Catholic  Church,  were  the  very  spiritual  life  of 
Ireland,  and  in  every  clime  the  voice  of  the  Irish  missionary 
was  heard  perpetuating  the  glorious  faith  of  Jesus  Christ,  so 
cherished  by  their  nation  and  countrymen  at  home.  Thus  was 
Ireland,  with  her  Church  full  of  faith  and  zeal,  endowed  and 
splendidly  gifted,  when  suddenly  she  is  called  upon,  by  a  power 
humanly  far  superior  to  her  own,  to  perform  an  act  of  religious 
apostasy,  to  forswear  and  abandon  the  faith  which  for  twelve 
hundred  years  had  been  engrained  into  the  very  blood  of  her 
children.  The  Irish  people  were  called  upon  to  pull  down  the 
image  of  Jesus  Christ  from  its  place — to  tear  open  the  taber- 
nacle, and  take  out  the  Son  of  God  and  trample  him  under  their 
feet ;  they  were  called  on  to  put  away  every  symbol  that  told 
the  world  of  their  Christianity ;  they  were  called  upon  to  give 
up  the  Holy  Sacraments  of  the  Church,  so  that  the  young  man 
or  the  young  maiden  could  no  longer  kneel  to  receive  the  pardon 
of  Jesus  Christ  in  the  confessional — the  aged  man,  dying,  no 
longer  should  have  the  holy  oils  of  the  Church  to  strengthen 
him  in  his  last  hour — that  the  Irish  grave  no  longer  should  be 
hallowed  by  the  shadow  of  the  Cross,  nor  consecrated  by  the 
prayers  of  a  faithful  and  loving  people.  All  these  were  the 
Irish  people  called  upon  to  give  up,  and  with  sacrilegious  hands 
to  pull  down  the  glorious  temples  which  our  fathers  and  our 
saints  had  built  up  in  the  land  of  their  ancestors.  Ireland 
solemnly  refused.  The  people,  represented  by  their  bishops  and 
their  clergy — speaking  by  the  voice  of  their  chieftains — stand- 
ing as  one  man,  cemented  and  united  together  by  the  glorious 
bond  of  unity  of  belief,  declared  that  they  would  rather  die 
than  surrender  one  doctrine  of  their  holy  religion,  or  give  up 
<?ne  essential  practice  of  the  faith  of  their  fathers.     Then  did 


The  Solemn    Triduum.  53 

the  world  behold  the  strange  and  terrible  sight  of  one  nation, 
powerful — even  then,  perhaps,  the  most  powerful  nation  in  the 
world — sitting  in  council,  and  deliberately  weighing  Ireland's 
fate  in  the  balance — and  the  conclusion,  deliberate  and  calm,  of 
that  mighty  nation  under  whose  bondage  we  had  fallen  was, 
that  Ireland  should  renounce  the  Catholic  faith  or  the  Irish 
people  be  exterminated.  Think  not  for  a  moment  that  I  am 
giving  way  to  excitement  of  thought  or  imagination,  or  in- 
dulging in  a  mere  rhetorical  exaggeration.  I  assert  and  will 
prove  that  the  calm,  quiet,  well-considered  determination  at 
which  England  arrived  three  hundred  years  ago  was  either 
to  make  us  Protestants  or  to  destroy  us  utterly,  and  that  the 
world  beheld  the  strange  spectacle  of  a  whole  nation  gird- 
ing up  its  loins  and  standing  to  be  martyred  for  the  faith  that 
was  in  them.  This  was  the  spirit  that  animated  the  viceroys 
and  rulers  of  the  land  from  the  days  of  Elizabeth,  when  the 
English  armies  came  over  to  Ireland,  and  this  the  spirit  that 
animated  the  great  northern  chieftains  as  they  rose  up  in  arms 
for  the  national  faith.  England's  army,  no  longer  Catholic, 
overspread  the  land ;  laws  were  made  which  were  deliberately 
directed  either  to  the  destruction  of  Ireland's  faith  or  the  exter- 
mination of  her  people.  To  be  a  priest  was  death — to  celebrate 
Mass  was  death — to  shelter  a  priest  was  ruin  and  exile — to  make 
provision  for  the  Catholic  faith  was  to  surrender  all  worldly 
goods,  and  go  forth  houseless  and  beggared — to  be  found  assist- 
ing at  the  Holy  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass  was  confiscation  and  exile. 
Then  did  Ireland  behold  her  faithful  bishops  and  clergy  driven 
from  their  cathedrals,  and  their  churches,  and  their  colleges — 
her  priests  hunted  over  the  land  like  wild  beasts,  and  a  price 
set  on  their  heads — all  the  externals  of  her  holy  religion  utterly 
abolished — no  symbol  of  her  Christianity  permitted  in  the  land; 
and  then  did  Elizabeth  and  her  English  Protestant  legislature 
calmly  and  coolly  undertake  the  gigantic  warfare  in  which  she 
failed — a  warfare  by  which  either  Ireland  should  be  Protestant- 
ized or  the  Irish  people  destroyed.  We  resisted.  Every  hamlet 
in  the  land,  almost  every  family,  had  its  martyrs — and  you  ask 
us  what  we  have  to  forgive?  Ask  the  martyred  dead.  The 
first  wave  of  religious  persecution  swept  over  the  land  in  1558, 
under  Elizabeth.  In  the  October  of  1585,  Richard  Creagh, 
Archbishop  of  Armagh,  was  poisoned  in  the  Tower  of  London, 


54  The  Solemn   Triduum. 

after  great  and  prolonged  sufferings,  nobly  endured  for  the 
Catholic  faith.  In  the  preceding  year,  Dublin  witnessed  a  fear- 
ful sight.  Dermod  O'Hurly,  Archbishop  of  Cashel,  who  was 
arrested  at  Carrick-on-Suir,  was  brought  into  the  city  a  prisoner, 
in  September,  1583,  and  kept  bound  there  in  chains  in  a  dark 
and  loathsome  prison,  up  to  Holy  Thursday  of  the  following 
year.  He  was  offered  a  free  pardon  and  promotion  in  the 
Church  if  he  denied  the  spiritual  power  of  the  pope,  and 
acknowledged  the  queen's  supremacy.  He  had  resolved,  he 
said,  never  to  abandon,  for  any  temporal  reward,  the  Catho- 
lic Church,  the  Vicar  of  Christ,  and  the  true  faith.  The  holy 
prelate  was  then  bound  to  the  trunk  of  a  large  tree  with  his 
hands  and  feet  chained,  and  his  legs  forced  into  log  boots  reach- 
ing up  to  the  knees.  The  boots  were  filled  with  salt  butter,  oil, 
hemp,  and  pitch,  and  the  martyr's  body  stretched  on  an  iron 
grate  over  a  fire,  and  cruelly  tortured  for  more  than  an  hour.  The 
pitch,  oil,  and  other  materials  boiled  over;  the  skin  was  torn  off 
the  feet,  and  even  large  pieces  of  flesh,  so  as  to  leave  the  bones 
quite  bare.  The  muscles  and  veins  contracted  ;  and  when  the 
boots  were  pulled  off,  no  one  could  bear  to  look  at  the  mangled 
body.  He  was  then  carried  back  to  the  same  dark  and  noisome 
dungeon,  to  make  him  suffer  still  greater  torments,  if  such  could 
be  devised.  Finally,  he  was  sentenced  to  be  dragged  to  the 
place  of  execution,  there  to  be  hanged,  his  head  cut  off,  his 
body  quartered,  and  the  quarters  hung  up  on  the  four  gates 
of  the  city.  The  holy  martyr  was  accordingly  executed  in 
Stephen's  Green,  on  Friday,  the  6th  of  May,  1584*  A  few 
years  later,  the  faithful  citizens  of  Dublin  beheld  the  heroic 
Bishop  of  Down  and  Connor,  Cornelius  O'Dovany,  led  through 
their  streets  to  the  same  place  of  execution.  For  three  years 
had  he  lain  in  the  dungeons  of  Dublin  Castle  and  suffered  the 
horrors  of  starvation.  At  length  came  the  sentence  that  "  Cor- 
nelius Dovany,  Bishop  of  Down  and  Connor,  should  be  taken 
back  to  prison,  and  then  drawn  in  a  cart  to  the  place  of  execu- 
tion, there  hanged  on  the  gallows  and  cut  down  whilst  alive, 
embowelled,  his  heart  and  bowels  burned,  his  head  cut  off,  and 
his  body  divided  into  four  parts."     When  he  was  led  to  execu- 

*  See  Rothe,  "A.  Brodin,"  p.  448:  Star.:uurst  and  Mooney ;  O'Sullivan,  "Hist 
Cath.  Mgr.  Moran.,"  p.  132  ;  O'Reilly,  "  Memorials,"  who  also  gives  the  State  papen 
attesting  and  proving  these  acts  of  cruelty. 


The  Solemn   Triduum.  55 

tion,  the  people  poured  out  in  a  cense  crowd  from  every  door 
into  the  streets,  and  in  the  sight  of  the  councillors,  and  to  the 
indignation  of  the  viceroy,  fell  on  their  knees  and  begged  lv« 
Pontifical  blessing  as  he  passed.  The  moment  the  bishop 
mounted  the  first  step  of  the  ladder  and  his  head  was  seen 
above  the  crowd,  a  great  shout  of  groans  burst  from  all  the 
spectators.  Thus  were  our  archbishops  and  bishops  slaughtered 
in  the  midst  of  a  heart-broken  people,  and  we  are  asked,  What 
have  we  to  forgive  ? 

The  hand  of  persecution  spared  not  the  priests  and  religious, 
but  fell  upon  them  as  heavily  as  on  the  prelates  of  the  Church. 
The  annals  of  Elizabeth's  reign  teem  with  the  records  of  their 
sufferings ;  and,  as  Peter  Talbot,  the  learned  Archbishop  of 
Dublin,  observes,  "  They  are  written  in  bloody  characters  ;  they 
are  deeply  stained  with  the  innocent  and  noble  blood  of  many 
learned  and. loyal  subjects,  only  because  they  would  not  abjure 
the  faith  of  their  Christian  ancestors."  "  It  exceeds  all  belief," 
says  another  historian  of  the  time,  O'Mahony,  "  to  what  per- 
secutions our  Irish  Catholics  were  subjected  ;  many  of  our 
bishops  suffered  death,  and  all  of  them  were  obliged  to  seek 
their  safety  in  concealment  or  flight ;  very  many  priests,  both 
secular  and  religious,  and  innumerable  individuals  of  both  sexes, 
as  well  nobles  as  plebeians,  were  also  put  to  death — to  say 
nothing  of  confiscation  of  property,  exile,  imprisonment,  and 
other  like  evils — all  of  which  our  country  suffered,  as  is  known 
to  heaven,  and  as  I  myself  have  partly  witnessed."  To  take  one 
of  numberless  instances  of  our  sufferings  at  this  time.  About 
the  year  1580,  a  band  of  English  Protestant  soldiers  entered 
the  monastery  church  of  St.  Mary  of  Maggio,  in  the  diocese 
of  Limerick,  whilst  the  Cistercian  monks  were  at  prayer  in  the 
choir.  "  Like  hungry  wolves,"  says  the  historian,  "  they  flung 
themselves  on  the  defenceless  religious  ;  in  a  few  moments  forty 
glorious  names  were  added  to  the  long  list  of  Ireland's  martyrs, 
and  the  sanctuary  flowed  with  their  blood." 

Years  passed  away,  and  Ireland  undergoes  again  a  persecu- 
tion from  England  that  gathered  strength  and  consistency  from 
intense  religious  hatred.  The  sect  of  the  Puritans — the  most 
violent  of  all  the  forms  in  which  Protestantism  has  shown  itself 
— arose  and  gained  strength  in  England  ;  and  it  was  represented 
by  a  great  and  powerful  man,  who  succeeded  in  taking  the  reins 


56  The  Solemn   Triduum. 

of  government  into  his  hands.  This  spirit  of  Puritanism  looked 
with  eyes  of  more  than  human  hatred  upon  the  spectacle  of 
Irish  fidelity ;  and  seeing  that  all  the  penal  laws,  all  the  terrors 
of  Elizabeth  and  Edward  VI.  were  not  equal  to  the  destruction 
of  the  Irish  clergy  and  the  Irish  faith,  Cromwell  came  over  to 
this  country,  at  the  head  of  a  great  army,  to  effect  that  in  which 
his  predecessors  had  failed — namely,  either  to  destroy  the  religion 
of  the  Irish  people  or  destroy  the  Irish  people  themselves. 
Now,  I  assert  that  Cromwell's  whole  determination  was  to 
utterly  and  entirely  exterminate  the  Irish  race ;  and  I  will  call 
up  in  evidence  one  of  the  greatest  enemies  of  Ireland,  yet  one 
of  the  greatest  writers  of  the  day — I  mean  the  English  states- 
man and  historian,  Macaulay.  Macaulay,  speaking  of  Cromwell 
and  of  his  coming  to  Ireland,  says — "  He  had  vanquished  them 
(the  Irish  people) ;  he  knew  that  they  were  in  his  power ;  and 
he  regarded  them  as  a  band  of  malefactors  and  idolators,  who 
were  mercifully  treated  if  they  were  not  smitten  with  the  edge 
of  the  sword.  His  administration  in  Ireland  was  an  administra- 
tion on  what  are  now  called  Orange  principles,  followed  out 
most  ably,  most  steadily,  most  undauntedly,  most  unrelentingly, 
to  every  extreme  consequence  *to  which  those  principles  lead, 
and  it  would,  if  continued,  inevitably  have  produced  the  effect 
which  he  contemplated — an  entire  decomposition  and  recon- 
struction of  society.  He  had  a  great  and  definite  object  in  view, 
to  make  Ireland  thoroughly  English — to  make  Ireland  another 
Yorkshire  or  Norfolk."  And  he  adds,  "  The  native  race  were 
driven  back  before  the  advancing  van  of  Anglo-Saxon  popula- 
tion, as  the  American  Indians  or  the  tribes  of  Southern  Africa 
are  now  driven  back  before  the  white  settlers.  Those  fearful 
phenomena  which  have  almost  invariably  attended  the  planting 
of  civilized  colonies  in  uncivilized  countries,  and  which  had  been 
known  to  the  nations  of  Europe  only  by  distant  and  question- 
able rumor,  were  now  publicly  exhibited  in  their  sight.  The 
words,  '  extirpation,'  '  eradication,'  were  often  in  the  mouths  of 
the  English  back-settlers  of  Leinster  and  Munster — cruel  words, 
yet  in  their  cruelty  containing  more  mercy  than  much  softer 
expressions  which  have  since  been  sanctioned  by  universities 
and  cheered  by  parliaments ;  for  it  is  in  truth  more  merciful  to 
extirpate  a  hundred  thousand  human  beings  at  once,  and  to  fill 
the  void  with  a  well-governed  population,  than  to  misgovern 


The  Solemn    Trxduum.  57 

millions  through  a  long  succession  of  generations."  Again, 
speaking  of  a  distinguished  Englishman  who  had  settled  in  Ire- 
land, Macaulay  says,  "  He  troubled  himself  as  little  about  the 
welfare  of  the  remains  of  the  old  Celtic  population  as  an  Eng- 
lish farmer  on  the  Swan  River  troubles  himself  about  the  New 
Hollanders,  or  a  Dutch  boor  at  the  Cape  about  the  Caffres." 
The  determination,  therefore,  was  to  sweep  away  the  Irish 
clergy  and  utterly  exterminate  the  Irish  people.  They  failed  ; 
but  they  ask  us  what  we  have  to  forgive  ?  What  have  we  to 
forgive  ?  I,  standing  here,  appearing  in  this  habit,  which  may 
recall  the  traditions  and  recollections  of  nearly  seven  hundred 
years,  of  an  order  united  in  interest,  and  bound  together  with 
the  Irish  people — what  have  I  to  forgive  ?  In  the  year  1650 
there  were  six  hundred  Dominicans  in  Ireland.  In  the  year 
1660,  nearly  ten  years  later,  out  of  the  six  hundred  how  many 
were  left? — one  hundred  and  fifty;  and  four  hundred  and  fifty 
priests  were  either  massacred,  burned,  or  taken,  put  into  the 
jjlave-ship,  and  sent  to  Barbadoes  and  Jamaica,  where  they  died, 
after  working  in  the  sugar-plantations  as  slaves — working  out 
their  unhappy  lives  under  the  lash  of  the  slave-driver ;  and 
they  were  the  best,  the  most  devoted,  the  noblest  of  Irishmen. 

In  this  fatal  interval,  whilst  the  whole  island  streamed  with 
Catholic  blood,  we  read,  amongst  many  others,  of  a  certain 
Dominican — Father  Richard  Barry — who  was  publicly  burned 
on  the  Rock  of  Cashel,  in  the  midst  of  a  horror-stricken  and 
most  afflicted  people. 

A  few  years  later  the  troubled  wave  of  conquest,  swollen 
with  the  same  religious  hatred,  swept  over  Ireland.  Cities,  of 
treaties  violated,  opened  their  gates  to  the  invaders,  and  had  the 
stones  of  their  streets  wetted  with  the  best  blood  of  their  women 
and  their  children.  Penal  laws  were  again  enacted  and  re- 
enacted,  making  it  death  to  preach  or  to  administer  the  sacra- 
ments to  Catholics ;  and  these  laws  did  their  work.  Catholic 
priests  filled  all  the  prisons  of  Ireland,  and  you  ask  us  what  we 
have  to  forgive  ?  Yet  more  than  this.  It  was  not  only  war 
against  one  faith,  but  it  was  war  against  everything  that  could 
sustain  that  faith.  Two  things  were  regarded  as  great  sustain- 
ing powers  of  Catholic  faith  in  Ireland,  namely — the  wealth  of 
the  people,  and  the  education  of  the  people.  The  help — the 
assistance  of  wealth — was  cut  off.     The  noble  families  of  the 


58  The  Solemn   Triduum. 

land  were  driven  forth  beggars  into  exile,  deprived  of  all  theii 
land  and  of  all  their  property,  for  their  religion.  The  whole 
province  of  Ulster  was  "  planted,"  as  it  is  called,  by  colonists 
from  the  north  of  England  and  from  Scotland,  who  brought 
their  Protestantism  with  them,  and  the  original  holders  of  the 
soil,  because  they  were  Catholics,  were  driven  back  farther  into 
the  island.  Cromwell  gave  orders  that  the  Irish  Catholics 
should  depart  from  their  homes,  and  a  few  barren  mountains  in 
Coiinaught,  overlooking  the  Western  Sea,  were  assigned  to  them 
as  their  only  hold  on  the  land.  They  were  to  choose  between 
"  hell,"  through  a  cruel  death,  or  exile  in  the  distant  and  barren 
tracts  of  the  West.  Thus  were  the  whole  people  driven  forth 
from  the  land  which  was  theirs  ;  thus  was  a  great  and  monstrous 
wrong  inflicted,  not  upon  one,  or  upon  two,  or  upon  a  thousand, 
but  upon  the  whole  nation ;  and  the  people,  unable  to  resist, 
gave  up  all  rather  than  the  faith  which  the  Almighty  God  had 
given  them.  The  second  great  sustaining  power  of  our  faith 
was  education.  Our  people,  from  the  beginning,  were  lovers  of 
knowledge — they  cultivated  knowledge.  Irish  teachers  were  to 
be  found  in  every  university  in  Europe.  The  greatest  doctor 
of  the  Church,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  had  for  his  teacher  in  that 
philosophy  in  which  he  excelled,  an  Irishman.  When  kings 
and  emperors  wanted  to  found  great  universities,  they  sent 
to  Ireland  for  the  first  scholars  of  the  age,  and  they  got  them ; 
and  thus  .was  knowledge,  and  the  love  of  knowledge,  spread  by 
Irishmen  all  over  the  world.  England  saw  that  in  Ireland 
flourished  the  strongest  faith,  side  by  side  with  the  very  highest 
intellectual  culture  ;  and  in  order  to  destroy  that  faith,  if  possi- 
ble, by  destroying  education,  she  made  it  penal  for  a  Catholic 
father  to  have  his  son  instructed — thinking  that  by  brutalizing 
the  people  by  ignorance,  she  would  reduce  them  to  an  accept- 
ance of  her  own  errors.  Ireland  uneducated — Ireland  shut  out 
from  the  schools — Irish  youth  uninstructed  betook  themselves 
to  the  halls  of  learning,  retaining  their  holy  religion ;  and  be- 
cause that  is  an  intellectual  religion — an  eminently  intellectual 
religion — it  kept  the  fire  of  intellectual  knowledge  and  the  sacred 
light  of  education  still  burning  in  the  land  in  spite  of  all  the 
penal  laws — in  spite  of  all  the  brute  terrors  brought  to  bear  for 
its  extinction.  You  have  asked  us  what  we  have  to  forgive? 
The  Catholic  Church  to-day,  after  standing  in  her  own  blood. 


The  Solemn    Triduum.  59 

End  pouring  forth  the  best  blood  of  her  children  for  more  than 
two  hundred  years,  sees  the  chains  fall  from  her  noble  and  queenly 
figure  ,  and  the  Catholic  Church  to-day,  forgetting  all  the  evils 
that  were  inflicted  upon  her — forgetting  all  her  injuries — turns 
with  disdain  fr<5m  the  offer  of  a  portion  of  that  which  was  once 
her  own — from  a  portion  of  that  which  was  confiscated  from  her 
three  hundred  years  ago ;  and  to  those  who  would  endow  her 
and  enrich  her  with  a  portion  of  that  which  was  once  all  her  own, 
she  says,  "  For  three  hundred  years  I  have  lived  in  the  land, 
and  I  have  suffered  with  my  people — for  three  hundred  years 
the  love  of  the  Irish  people  has  been  a  sufficient  endowment  for 
me — for  me,  who,  having  food  and  clothing,  am  content  to  labor 
and,  if  necessary,  to  die — for  three  hundred  years  I  have  found 
my  endowment  in  the  hearts  of  my  people — I  prize  them  more 
than  all  the  wealth  this  world  could  lay  at  my  feet ;  and  there- 
fore, I  say,  whatever  portion  of  this  church  property  might  be 
mine  I  am  willing  to  give  up  to  the  Irish  people  for  their 
national  purposes.  I  will  cast  my  bread,  as  of  old,  upon  the 
running  waters,  and  I  will  lean  on  the  faith  and  generosity  of 
Irish  hearts  for  my  existence  in  this  land."  And,  my  brethren, 
whilst  she  thus  speaks  to  us,  she  turns  to  her  enemies — she  turns 
to  those  who  for  three  hundred  years  have  laid  the  scourge  of 
persecution  upon  her — and  says,  "  I  am  willing  to  forget  all,  I  am 
willing  never  to  remind  you,  or  remind  my  own  people,  of  a  sin- 
gle injury  I  have  sustained ;  I  forgive  you  with  all  my  heart  and 
soul,  and  I  only  ask  you  to  join  hands  with  me  and  say,  Let  us 
be  united  in  all  the  civil  bonds  of  friendship  and  equality,  for 
our  own  welfare  and  the  good  of  our  common  country."  This 
is  the  language  which  we  hold  to-day;  and 'if  I  took  a  review 
before  you  of  our  past  wrongs,  it  is  not  to  fling  them  into  the 
faces  of  those  who  inflicted  them.  Oh,  no !  It  is  to  tell  them 
that  we  exercise  the  virtue  of  forgiveness — of  love  of  our  neigh- 
bor. We  have  much  to  forgive — more  than  any  people  on  the 
face  of  the  world.  We  have  much  to  forgive,  and  therefore  our 
love  which  prompts  us  to  forgive  must  be  correspondingly  great. 
We  offer  them  the  pledge  of  our  friendship  if  they  will  accept  it. 
Finally,  my  brethren,  our  love  of  our  neighbor  obliges  us  to 
ardently  desire  his  spiritual  and  temporal  welfare,  and  it  is  this 
also  that  brings  us  here  to-day.  I  do  not  conceal  that  one  great 
feeling  which  fills  the  Catholic  heart  is  the  hope  that  the  great 


60  The  Solemn   Triduum. 

measure  of  redress  which  has  just  passed  will  prepare  the  way, 
and  open  the  road,  to  obtain  for  Ireland  again,  at  no  distant  day, 
the  heavenly  blessing  of  religious  unity.  It  was  for  unity  in 
faith  that  Christ  our  Lord  prayed  to  His  Father  the  evening 
before  He  suffered.  It  was  for  unity  in  faith  that  He  offered 
His  prayers  for  His  apostles  at  the  Last  Supper.  It  was  for 
unity  of  faith,  and  that  men  might  be  of  one  mind,  that  He  es- 
tablished His  Church  upon  earth,  and  set  upon  that  Church  the 
seal  of  infallibility  of  doctrine,  that  all  men  might  know  His 
word,  and  have  confidence  in  accepting  it  from  her  lips.  This 
unity  was  the  blessing  of  Ireland  for  twelve  hundred  years  : 
from  the  day  she  took  Catholic  truths  from  the  teachings  of  her 
own  apostle,  down  to  the  sad  and  terrible  day  when  she  was 
told  that  the  Church  was  no  longer  one,  and  that  she  must  dis- 
unite herself  from  Peter's  Chair.  We  know,  as  Catholics,  that 
the  Holy  Catholic  Church  is  the  one  depository  of  divine  truth, 
the  one  infallible  witness  to  God's  creed  upon  earth.  We  know 
this.  Our  Protestant  fellow-countrymen  will  not  receive  it. 
We  respect  their  very  error,  but  we  would  not  love  them,  we 
could  not  love  them  as  our  neighbors,  we  could  not  fulfill  the 
Gospel  in  their  regard,  if  we  did  not  ardently  and  earnestly  pray 
to  Almighty  God  to  open  their  eyes  to  this  great  truth,  that  it 
is  necessary  to  be  in  body  as  well  as  in  spirit  members  of  the 
Catholic  Church  in  order  to  be  pleasing  to  God,  and  have  that 
faith  without  which  it  is  impossible  to  be  saved.  We  hope  that 
our  aspirations  for  religious  unity  will  be  forwarded  by  the  de- 
struction of  the  fatal  ascendency  which  so  long  reigned  amongst 
us.  Therefore  do  we  hail  it  out  of  the  love  we  have  for  our  Prot- 
estant fellow-citizens  ;  therefore  do  we  hail  it  as  the  dawning 
of  the  day  when  once  more  this  land  will  partake  of  the  bless- 
ings of  religious  unity — when  all  Irishmen  will  come  to  kneel  at 
the  same  altar — shall  receive  into  faithful  and  loving  hearts  the 
same  sacramental  God,  and  be  united  as  brothers  in  thelandlDy 
every  bond  of  love,  not  merely  civic  friendship,  but  in  the  higher 
national  bond  of  union,  which  is  identity  of  faith.  We  say  that 
we  hope  this  day  is  dawning,  and  we  see  the  first  stroke  of  its 
coming  light  on  the  horizon  of  our  history  in  this  great  act  of 
amelioration  which  is  passed.  We  could  not  be  loving  man — 
we  could  not  have  either  love  of  our  neighbor,  which  is  the 
mark  of  Christians,  if  we  did  not  hail  this  blessing  as  the  first 


The  Solemn   Triduum.  61 

light  of  a  coming  glorious  day — if  we  did  not  cry  out  to  God  in 
thanksgiving  for  the  past,  "  Oh,  come,  O  Lord  !  come  in  the 
unity  of  faith — oh!  come  in  the  strength  of  that  love  which 
triumphed  in  the  sacrifice  on  the  Cross  ! — oh,  come,  and  delay 
not !  beam  on  all  those  who  are  in  darkness  or  in  the  shadow 
of  death  ;  fill  them  with  the  light  of  thy  presence  and  of  thy 
grace  :  beam  on  their  intellects  with  the  light  of  faith  ;  beam  on 
their  hearts  with  the  ardor  of  divine  love  ;  "  that  so,  my  brethren, 
we  may  all  unite,  bound  together  in  faith,  in  hope,  and  in 
charity;  and  thus,  seeking  first  that  union  which  is  the  kingdom 
of  God,  all  other  things,  all  temporal  blessings,  all  greatness, 
which  might  hereafter  follow,  if  we  were  a  united  people,  ac- 
cording to  the  Word  of  our  Heavenly  Father,  "  Seek  ye  first  the 
kingdom  of  God,  and  all  other  things  shall  be  added  unto 
you." 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MAN  THE  MAN 
OF  THE  DAY." 


[Delivered  in  St.  Paul's  Church,  Brooklyn,  on  March  22d,  1872.J 

Y  friends,  I  have  selected  as  the  subject  on  which  to 
address  you,  the  following  theme  : — "  The  Christian 
Man  the  Man  of  the  Day."  You  may,  perhaps,  be 
inclined  to  suppose  that  I  mean  by  this,  that,  in 
reality,  the  Christian  man  was  the  actual  man  of  the  day. 
That  he  was  the  man  whom  our  age  loved  to  honor :  that  he 
was  the  man  who,  recognized  as  a  Christian  man,  received,  for 
that  very  reason,  the  confidence  of  his  fellow-men,  and  every 
honor  society  could  bestow  upon  him.  Do  not  flatter  your- 
selves, my  friends,  that  this  is  my  meaning.  I  do  not  mean  to 
say  that  the  Christian  man  is  the  man  of  the  day.  I  wish  I 
could  say  so.  But,  what  I  do  mean  is,  that  the  Christian  man, 
and  he  alone,  must  be  the  man  of  the  day  ;  that  our  age  cannot 
live  without  him  ;  and  that  we  are  fast  approaching  to  such  a 
point  that  the  world  itself  will  be  obliged,  on  the  principle  of 
self-preservation,  to  cry  out  for  the  Christian  man.  But  to-day 
he  is  not  in  the  high  places ;  for  the  spirit  of  the  age  is  not  Chris- 
tian. Now,  mark  you,  there  is  no  man  living  who  is  a  greater 
lover  of  his  age  than  I.  And,  priest  as  I  am,  and  monk  as 
well,  coming  here  before  you  in  this  time-honored  old  habit ; 
coming  before  the  men  of  the  nineteenth  century  as  if  I  were 
a  fossil  dug  out  of  the  soil  of  the  thirteenth  century,  I  still 
come  before  you  as  a  lover  of  the  age  in  which  we  live  ;  a  lover 
of  its  freedom,  a  lover  of  its  laws,  and  a  lover  of  its  material 
progress.  But,  I  still  assert  that  the  spirit  of  this  nineteenth 
century  of  ours  is  not  Catholic.  Let  me  prove  it.  At  this 
very  moment   the    Catholic  Church,  through    her   bishops,    is 


The  Christian  Man,  Etc.  63 

engaged  in  a  hand-to-hand  and  deadly  conflict,  in  England  in 
Ireland,  in  Belgium,  in  France,  in  Germany,  ay,  and  in  this 
country,  with  the  spirit  of  the  age ;  and  for  what  ?  The  men 
in  power  try  to  lay  hold  of  the  young  child,  to  control  that 
child's  education,  and  to  teach  him  all  things  except  religion. 
But  the  bishops  come  and  say  :  "  This  is  a  question  of  life  and 
death,  and  the  child  must  be  a  Christian.  Unless  he  is  taught 
of  God,  it  is  a  thousand  times  better  that  he  were  never  taught 
at  all ;  for  knowledge  without  God  is  a  curse,  and  not  a  bless- 
ing." Now,  if  our  age  were  Christian,  would  it  thus  seek  to 
banish  God  from  the  schools,  to  erase  the  name  of  God  clean 
out  of  the  heart  of  the  little  ones,  for  whom  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Son  of  God,  shed  his  blood  ?  Another  proof  that  the  spirit  of 
our  age  is  anti-Christian,  for  whatever  contradicts  Christ  is 
anti-Christian.  Speaking  of  the  most  sacred  bond  of  matri- 
mony, which  lies  at  the  root  of  all  society,  at  the  fountain-head 
of  all  the  world's  future — Christ  has  said,  "  What  God  hath 
joined  together,  let  no  man  put  asunder."  But  the  Legislature, 
the  spirit  of  this  age  of  ours,  comes  in  and  says  :  "  I  will  not 
recognize  the  union  as  of  God,  and  I  will  reserve  to  myself  the 
right  to  separate  them."  They  have  endeavored  to  substitute 
a  civil  marriage  for  the  holy  sacrament  which  Jesus  Christ 
sanctified  by  His  presence,  and  ratified  by  His  first  miracle — 
the  sacrament  which  represents  the  union  of  Christ  with  His 
Church.  "  I  will  not  let  God  join  them  together,"  says  the 
State.  "  Let  them  go  to  a  magistrate,  or  a  registrar."  Let 
God  have  nothing  to  do  with  it.  Let  no  sanctifying  influence 
be  upon  them ;  leave  them  to  their  own  lustful  desires,  and  to 
the  full  enjoyment  of  wicked  passions,  unchecked  by  God. 
Thus  the  State  rules,  in  case  of  marriage,  and  says  :  "  I  will 
break  asunder  that  bond."  And  it  made  the  anti-Christian  law 
of  "  divorce."  "  Whom  God  joins  together,"  says  the  Master 
of  the  world — whose  word  shall  never  pass  away,  though 
heaven  and  earth  shall  pass  away — "let  no  man  separate." 
God  alone  can  do  it ;  the  man  who  dares  to  do  it  shakes  the 
very  foundation  of  society,  and  takes  the  key-stone  out  of  the 
arch.  But  the  State  comes,  and  says  :  "  I  will  do  it."  ThL 
is  the  legislation — this  is  the  spirit  of  our  age.  I  do  not  mean 
to  say  that  there  were  not  sins  and  vices  in  other  ages ;  but  I 
have  been  taught  to  look  back  from    my  earliest  childhood, 


64  The  Christian  Man 

backward  full  six  hundred  years,  to  that  glorious  thirteenth 
century,  for  the  bloom  and  flower  of  sanctity  prospering  upon 
the  earth.  Still,  I  have  been  so  taught  as  not  to  shut  my  eyes 
to  its  vices ;  and  yet,  the  spirit  of  that  age  was  more  Christian 
than  the  spirit  of  this.  The  spirit  that  had  faith  enough  to 
declare  that,  whatever  else  was  touched  by  profane  hands,  the 
sanctity  of  the  marriage  sacrament  was  to  remain  inviolate — 
when  all  recognized  its  living  author  as  the  Son  of  God.  It 
had  faith  enough  to  move  all  classes  of  men  as  one  individual, 
and  as  possessing  one  faith,  and  one  lofty  purpose.  And  this 
is  not  the  spirit  of  our  age.  Whom  do  we  hear  are  the  men 
who  invent  and  make  our  telegraphs  and  railroads,  and  all  the 
great  works  of  the  day  ?  We  hear  very  little  about  Catholics 
being  anything  generally  but  lookers-on  in  these  great  matters  , 
that  Catholics  had  nothing  to  do  with  them,  and  that  they 
came  in  simply  to  profit  by  the  labor  of  others.  And  yet, 
don't  we  knou  that  nearly  every  great  discovery  made  upon 
this  earth  was  made  by  some  Catholic  man  or  other ;  and  some 
of  the  greatest  of  them  all  made  by  old  monks  in  their  clois- 
ters. And  as  the  spirit  of  the  day  makes  the  man  of  the 
day,  I  cannot  congratulate  you,  my  friends,  that  the  man  of 
the  day  is  a  Christian  man.  Now,  I  am  here  this  evening,  to 
prove  to  you,  and  to  bring  home  to  your  intelligence,  two  great 
facts — remember  them  always :  First — The  man  the  world 
makes  independent  of  God,  is  such  an  incubus  and  curse,  that 
the  world  itself  cannot  bear  him,  that  the  world  itself  cannot 
endure  him ;  for,  if  he  leaves  his  mark  upon  history,  it  is  a 
curse,  and  for  evil.  Secondly — The  only  influence  that  can 
purify  and  save  the  world,  is  the  spirit  of  that  glorious  religion 
which  alone  represents  Christianity.  Call  me  no  bigot  if  I  say 
that  the  Catholic  Church  alone  is  the  great  representative  of 
Christianity.  I  do  not  deny  that  there  is  goodness  outside  of 
it,  nor  that  there  are  good  and  honest  men  who  are  not  of  this 
Church.  Whenever  I  meet  an  honest,  truthful  man,  I  never 
stop  to  inquire  if  he  is  Catholic  or  Protestant ;  I  am  always 
ready  to  do  him  honor,  as  the  noblest  work  of  God.  But  this 
I  do  say — all  this  is,  in  reality,  represented  in  the  Catholic 
Church.  And  I  further  assert  that  the  Catholic  Church  alone 
has  the  power  to  preserve  in  man  the  consciousness  that  God 
has  created  him.     And,   now,  having  laid  down   my  opening 


The  Man  of  the  Day.  65 

remarks,   let    us   look   at   the  man  of  the  day,  and    see  what 
he  is. 

Many  of  you  have  the  ambition  to  become  men  of  the  day. 
It  is  a  pleasant  thing -to  be  pointed  at  and  spoken  of  as  a  man 
of  the  day.  "  There  is  a  man  who  has  made  his  mark."  There 
is  a  man  of  whom  every  one  speaks  well ;  the  intelligent  man, 
the  successful  man,  the  man  who  is  able  to  propound  the  law 
by  expressing  his  opinion — able  to  sway  the  markets  ;  the  man 
whose  name  is  blazoned  everywhere.  You  all  admire  this  man. 
But  let  us  examine  him  in  detail — for  he  is  made  for  mere  show, 
a  mere  simulacrum  of  a  man.  Let  us  pick  him  in  pieces,  and 
see  what  is  in  this  man  of  the  day — whether  he  will  satisfy  God 
or  man — see  whether  he  will  come  up  to  the  wants  of  society 
or  not.  Man,  I  suppose  you  will  all  admit,  was  created  by 
Almighty  God  for  certain  fixed,  specific  purposes  and  duties. 
Surely,  the  God  of  wisdom,  of  infinite  love — a  God  of  infinite 
knowledge  and  freedom,  never  communicated  to  an  intelligent 
human  being  power  and  knowledge  like  his  own,  without  having 
some  high,  grand,  magnificent,  and  God-like  purpose  in  view. 
A  certain  purpose  must  have  guided  Him.  Certain  duties  must 
have  attached  to  the  glorious  privileges  that  are  thus  imprinted 
in  man's  soul  as  the  image  of  God.  And  hence,  my  friends, 
there  are  the  duties  man  owes  to  the  family,  the  duties  of  the 
domestic  circle,  the  duties  he  owes  to  society,  to  those  who 
come  within  the  range  of  his  influence,  within  the  circle  of  his 
friendship,  to  those  with  whom  he  has  commercial  or  other 
relations,  the  duties  he  owes  to  his  country  and  native  land,  his 
political  duties  ;  and,  finally,  over  them  all,  permeating  through 
them  all,  overshadowing  all  that  is  in  him,  there  is  his  great 
duty  to  Almighty  God,  who  made  him.  Now,  what  are  man's 
duties  in  the  domestic  circle  ?  Surely,  the  first  virtue  of  man  in 
this  circle  is  the  virtue  of  fidelity,  representing  the  purity  of  Jesus 
Christ  in  the  man's  soul ;  the  virtues  of  fidelity,  stability,  and  im- 
movable loyalty  to  the  vows  he  has  pledged  before  high  heaven, 
and  to  all  the  consequences  these  vows  have  involved.  God 
created  man  with  a  hearty  disposition  to  love  and  to  find  the 
worthy  object  of  his  love  ;  and  to  give  to  that  object  the  love  of 
his  heart  is  the  ordinary  nature  of  man.  A  few  arc  put  aside — 
among  them  the  priest  and  the  monk  and  the  nun,  to  whom 
God  says :  "  I,  myself,  will  be  your  love  ;"  and  they  know  no 

5 


66  The  Christian  Man. 

love  save  that  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Yet  they  have  th« 
same  craving  for  love,  the  same  desire,  and  the  same  necessity. 
But  to  them  the  Lord  says  :  "  I,  myself,  will  be  your  love,  your 
portion,  your  inheritance."  These,  I  say,  are  those  who  are 
wrapt  in  the  love  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  This  is  not  the 
time  nor  the  occasion  for  me  to  dwell  upon  the  infinite  joy  and 
substantial  happiness  of  the  days  of  those  who  have  fastened 
their  hearts  upon  the  great  heart  of  Jesus  Christ ;  but,  for  the 
ordinary  run  of  mankind,  love  is  a  necessity  ;  and  the  Almighty 
has  created  that  desire  for  love  in  the  hearts  of  all  men ;  and  it 
has  become  sanctified  and  typical  of  the  union  of  Christ  with 
His  Church — typical  of  the  grace  that  Christ  poured  abroad 
upon  her.  This  love  and  union  must  lie  at  the  very  fountain- 
head  of  society,  it  must  sanctify  the  very  spring  whence  all  our 
human  nature  flows ;  for  it  is  out  of  this  union  of  two  loving 
hearts  that  our  race  is  propagated,  and  mankind  continued  to 
live  on  earth.  What  is  the  grace  that  sanctifies  it?  I  answer, 
it  is  the  grace  of  fidelity.  Understand  me  well ;  there  is  nothing 
more  erratic,  nothing  more  changeable  than  this  heart  of  man ; 
nothing  wilder  in  its  acts,  in  its  propensities,  than  this  treacher- 
ous heart  of  man.  I  know  of  no  greater  venture  that  a  human 
being  can  make  than  that  which  a  young  woman  makes,  when 
she  takes  the  hand  of  a  young  man,  and  hears  the  oath  from  his 
lips  that  no  other  love  than  hers  shall  ever  enter  his  heart.  A 
treacherous,  erratic  heart  is  this  of  man ;  prone  to  change, 
prone  to  evil  influences,  excited  by  every  form  of  passing  beauty. 
But  from  that  union  spring  the  obligations  of  father  and  mother 
to  their  progeny.  Their  children  are  to  be  educated  ;  and  as 
they  grow  up  and  bloom  into  the  fullness  of  their  reason,  the 
one  object  of  the  Christian  father  and  mother  is  to  bring  out  of 
these  children  the  Christianity  that  is  latent  there.  Christ  enters 
into  that  young  soul  by  baptism  ;  but  He  lies  sleeping  in  that 
soul,  acting  only  upon  the  blind  animal  instincts  of  infancy; 
and,  as  the  child  wakes  to  reason,  Christ  that  sleeps  there  must 
be  awakened  and  developed,  until  that  child  comes  to  the  full- 
ness of  his  intellectual  age,  and  the  man  of  God  is  fully  devel- 
oped in  the  child  of  earth.  Education  is  nothing  unless  it 
brings  out  the  Christ  in  the  man.  This  is  the  true  end  and 
object  of  all  education.  Now,  how  does  the  man  of  the  day 
fulfill  this  end  ?  how  does  he  fulfill  these  duties  to  his  wife  and  to 


Tlui  Man  of  the  Day.  67 

his  children,  these  duties  which  we  call  the  domestic  duties? 
This  "  clever"  man  of  the  day — how  does  he  fulfill  them  ?  He, 
perhaps,  in  his  humbler  days,  before  he  knew  to  what  meridian 
the  sun  of  his  fortune  would  one  day  rise,  took  to  himself  a 
fair  and  modest  wife.  Fortune  smiled  upon  him.  The  woman 
remained  content  only  with  her  first  and  simple  love,  and  with 
fidelity  to  the  man  of  her  choice  and  the  duties  which  that  love 
brought  with  them.  But  how  is  it  with  the  man  of  the  day? 
Shall  I  insult  the  ears  of  the  Christian  by  following  the  man  of 
the  day  through  all  the  dark  paths  of  his  iniquity?  Shall  I 
describe  to  you  the  glance  of  his  lustful  eye,  forgetful  of  the 
vows  he  has  made  to  the  one  at  home  ?  Can  I  tell  you  of  the 
man  of  the  day,  following  every  passing  form,  a  mere  lover  of 
beauty ;  without  principle,  without  God,  without  virtue,  and 
without  a  thought  of  the  breaking  hearts  at  home  ?  Shall  I 
tell  you  of  the  man  of  the  day  trying  to  conceal  the  silvering 
hand  of  age  as  it  passes  over  him,  trying  to  retain  the  shadow 
of  departed  youth — and  why?  Because  all  the  worst  vices  of 
the  young  blood  are  there,  for  they  are  inseparable  from  the 
man  of  the  day.  Sometimes,  in  some  fearful  example,  he  comes 
out  before  us  in  all  his  terrible  deformity.  The  world  is  aston- 
ished— the  world  is  frightened  for  a  moment ;  but  men  who 
understand  all  these  things  better  than  you  or  I  come  to  us,  and 
say,  "Oh!  this  is  what  is  going  on;  this  is  the  order  of  the 
day."  There  is  no  vestige  of  purity,  no  vestige  of  fidelity. 
Mind  and  imagination  corrupted;  the  very  flesh  rotting,  defiled 
by  excess  of  unmentionable  sin.  And  if  children  are  born  to 
the  wicked  and  faithless  adulterer,  the  time  comes  when  the 
State  assumes  that  which  neither  God  nor  man  intended  it 
should  assume — namely,  the  office  of  instructor ;  when  the 
State  comes  and  says,  "  I  will  take  the  children  ;  I  will  teach 
them  everything  excepting  God  ;  I  will  bring  them  up  clever 
men,  but  infidels,  without  the  knowledge  of  God."  Then  the 
man  of  the  day  turns  round  to  the  State,  and  says,  "  Take  the 
labor  off  our  hands;  these  children  are  incumbrances;  we  don't 
want  to  educate  them  ;  you  say  you  will."  But  the  Church 
comes  in,  like  a  true  mother — like  the  mother  of  the  days  of 
Solomon  ;  and  with  heartbreaking  accent  says  to  the  father, 
"  Give  me  the  child,  for  it  was  to  me  that  Christ  said,  'Go  and 
teach  ;  go  and  educate.'  "     But  the  father  turns  away.     He  wil! 


68  The   Christian  Man 

not  trust  his  child  to  that  instructor  who  will  bring  up  this  child 
as  a  rebuke  to  him  in  his  old  age,  for  his  wickedness,  by  its  own 
virtue  and  goodness.  The  spirit  of  our  age  not  only  tolerates 
this,  but  actually  assists  all  this.  This  man  may  tell  his  wife 
that  she  is  not  the  undisturbed  mistress  of  her  house.  He  may 
come  in  with  a  writing  of  "  divorce"  in  his  hand,  and  turn  his 
wife  out  of  doors.  Yes  ;  when  her  beauty  and  accomplishments 
are  not  up  to  the  fastidious  taste  of  this  man  of  the  day,  he 
may  call  in  the  State  to  make  a  decree  of  "  divorce,"  and  depose 
the  mother  of  his  children,  the  queen  of  his  heart. 

Let  us  now  pass  from  the  domestic  to  the  social  circle.  He 
is  surrounded  by  his  friends  and  has  social  influence.  He  has  a 
duty,  to  lay  at  least  one  stone  in  the  building  up  of  that  society 
of  which  the  Almighty  created  him  a  member,  and  of  which 
He  will  demand  an  account  in  the  hour  of  death.  Every  man 
is  a  living  member  of  society.  He  owes  a  duty  to  that  society. 
What  is  that  duty?  It  is  a  duty  of  truthfulness  to  our  friends, 
a  good  example  to  those  around  us,  a  respect  and  veneration 
for  every  one  with  whom  we  come  in  contact,  especially  the 
young.  Even  the  pagans  acknowledge  this  in  the  maxim, 
"  Maxima  debetur  puero  reverential'  The  man  of  the  day  opens 
his  mouth  to  vomit  forth  words  of  blasphemy,  or  sickening 
obscenity,  and  before  him  may  be  the  young  boy,  growing  into 
manhood,  learning  studiously  from  the  accomplished  jester's 
lips  the  lesson  of  iniquity  and  impurity  that  will  ruin  his  soul. 
Hear  him,  and  follow  him  into  more  refined  and  general  society. 
What  a  consummate  hypocrite  he  is,  when- he  enters  his  own 
house,  dressed  for  the  evening,  with  a  smile  upon  his  face,  and 
with  words  of  affection  upon  his  adulterous  lips,  he  addresses 
himself  to  his  wife,  or  to  his  daughter,  or  to  his  lady  friends  ! 
What  a  consummate  hypocrite  he  is  !  Ah  !  who  would  magine 
that  he  knows  every  mystery  of  iniquity  and  defilement,  even 
to  its  lowest  depths  !  Ah,  who  would  imagine  that  this  smiling 
face  has  learned  the  smile  of  contempt  for  everything  that 
savors  of  virtue,  of  purity,  and  of  God !  Who  would  imagine 
that  the  man  who  takes  the  virgin  hand  of  the  young  girl  in  his, 
and  leads  her  with  so  much  confidence  and  so  much  gladness  to 
the  altar,  who"  would  imagine  that  that  man's  hand  is  already 
defiled  with  the  touch  of  everything  abominable  that  the  demon 
of  impurity  could  present  to  him  !     Take  him  in  his  relations 


The  Man  of  tJu  Day.  69 

with  his  friends.  Is  he  a  trustworthy  friend  ?  Is  he  a  reliable 
man?  Will  he  not  slip  the  wicked  publication  into  the  hands  of 
his  young  friend  to  instruct  him  in  vice?  Will  he  not  pass  the* 
obscene  book  from  hand  to  hand,  with  a  pleasant  look,  as  though 
it  were  a  good  thing,  although  he  knows  the  poison  of  hell  is 
lurking  between  its  leaves  ?  Is  he  a  reliable  man  ?  Is  he  trust- 
worthy ?  Go  down  and  ask  his  friends  will  they  trust  him,  and 
they  will  turn  and  laugh  in  your  face,  and  tell  you  he  is  as 
"  slippery  as  an  eel." 

This  is  the  man  of  the  day — this  boasted  hero  of  ours — in  a 
social  way.  Pass  a  step  further  on.  Take  him  in  his  relations 
to  his  country,  to  its  legislature,  to  its  government.  Take  him 
in  what  they  call  the  political  relations  of  life.  What  shall  I 
say  of  him?  I  can  simply  put  it  all  in  a  nutshell.  I  ask  you, 
friends,  in  this,  our  day,  suppose  somebody  were  to  ask  you  to 
say  a  good  word  for  him  as  for  a  friend ;  suppose  somebody 
were  to  ask  you  the  character  of  the  man,  and  suppose  you 
said :  "  Well,  he  is  an  honest  man  ;  a  man  of  upright  charac- 
ter in  business ;  a  man  of  well-ascertained  character  in  soci- 
ety >  a  good  father,  a  good  husband — but,  you  know — he  is 
a  politician  ?"  I  ask  you,  is  there  not  something  humil- 
iating in  the  acknowledgment — "He  is  a  politician?"  Is  it 
not  almost  as  if  you  said  something  dishonorable,  something 
bad  ?  But  there  ought  to  be  nothing  dishonorable  in  it.  On 
the  contrary,  every  man  ought  to  be  a  politician — especially  in 
this  glorious  new  country,  which  gives  every  man  a  right  of 
citizenship,  and  tells  him,  "  My  friend,  I  will  not  make  a  law 
to  bind  and  govern  you  without  your  consent  and  permission  " 
— why,  that  very  fact  makes  every  man  a  politician  among  us. 
But  if  it  does,  does  it  not  also  recognize  the  grand  virtue  which 
underlies  every  free  government — which  makes  every  man  a 
sharer  in  its  blessings  because  he  enhances  them  by  his  integ- 
rity— which  makes  politics  something,  not  a.  shame  and  a  dis- 
grace, but  something  to  be  honored  and  prized  as  the  aim  of 
unselfish  patriotism?  What  is  that?  It  is  a  love,  but  not  a 
selfish  love,  of  his  country;  a  love,  not  seeking  to  control  or 
share  its  administration  for  selfish  purposes — not  to  become 
rich — not  to  share  in  this  or  take  that — but  to  serve  the  coun- 
try for  its  good,  and  to  leave  an  honorable  and  unblemished 
name  in  the  annals  of  that  country's  history.     Is  this  the  man 


70  The  Christian  Man 

of  the  day?  I  will  not  answer  the  question.  I  am  a  stranger 
amongst  you,  and  it  were  a  great  presumption  in  me  to  enter 
upon  a  dissertation  on  the  politics  of  America.  But  this  I  do 
know,  that  if  the  politicians  of  this  country  are  as  bad,  or  half 
as  bad  as  their  own  newspapers  represent  them,  then  it  is  no 
credit  to  a  man  to  be  accounted  a  politician.  Some  time  ago  a 
fellow  was  arrested  in  France  for  having  committed  several 
crimes,  and  whilst  he  pleaded  guilty  to  the  various  counts  of  the 
indictment,  he  added,  as  an  extenuating  circumstance,  "  but 
thank  God  I  am  no  Jesuit."  This  man  had  been  reading  the 
French  infidel  newspapers,  and  he  thought  a  priest  something 
worse  than  himself.  Bad  as  he  was,  he  thought  it  was  only 
due  to  his  character  to  say  that  he  was  no  Jesuit.  "  In  the 
lowest  depths,  there's  a  lower  still,"  and  this  criminal  imagined 
that  he  had  not  reached  the  lowest  and  worst  depth  of  crime  as 
long  as  he  could  say  that  he  was  no  Jesuit.  If  a  man  were  ar- 
raigned for  any  conceivable  crime  in  this  country,  he  might  urge, 
as  ah  extenuating  circumstance,  "  Tis  true  ;  I  did  it ;  but  I  am 
no  politician !"  Thank  God,  there  are  many  and  honorable 
exceptions.  If  there  were  not  many  honorable  exceptions 
what  would  become  of  society  ?  Why,  society  itself  would 
come  to  a  stand-still.  But  there  are  honest  and  independent 
men,  and  no  word  of  mine  can  be  regarded  as,  in  the 
slightest  degree,  reflecting  on  any  man,  or  class  of  men.  True, 
I  know  no  one — I  speak  simply  as  a  stranger  coming  amongst 
you,  and  from  simply  reading  the  accounts  that  your  daily 
papers  give. 

Now,  I  ask  you,  if  the  man  of  the  age,  or  the  day,  be  such — 
(and  I  do  not  think  that  I  have  overdrawn  the  picture  ;  nay 
more — I  am  convinced  that  in  the  words  I  have  used  you  have 
recognized  the  truth — perhaps  something  less  than  the  whole 
truth — of  "  the  man  of  the  day"  in  his  social,  political,  and 
domestic  relations) — I  ask  you — not  as  a  Catholic  priest  at  all, 
but  as  a  man — as  a  man  not  without  some  amount  of  intelli- 
gence— as  one  speaking  to  his  fellow-men  as  intellectual  men — 
can  this  thing  go  on  ?  Should  this  thing  go  on  ?  Are  you  in 
society  prepared  to  accept  that  man  as  a  true  man  of  the  day  ? 
Are  you  prepared  to  multiply  him  as  the  model  man  ?  Are  you 
prepared  to  say:  "We  are  satisfied;  he  comes  up  to  our  re- 
quirements?"    Or,  on  the  other  hand,  must  you  say  this:  "  It 


The  Man  of  the  Day.  yi 

will  never  do  :  if  this  be  the  man  of  the  day,  there  is  an  end  to 
society ;  if  this  be  the  man  of  the  day,  it  will  never  do ,  we 
must  seek  another  style — another  stamp  of  man,  with  other 
principles  of  conduct,  or  else  society  comes  to  a  deadlock  and 
standstill."  And  to  those  two  propositions  I  will  invite  your 
attention.  Go  back  three  hundred  years  ago.  When  Martin 
Luther  inaugurated  Protestantism,  one  of  the  principles  upon 
which  he  rested  his  fallacy  was  to  separate  the  Church  from  all 
influence  upon  human  affairs.  Protestantism  said :  "  Let  her 
teach  religion,  but  let  her  not  be  mixing  herself  up  with  this 
question  or  that."  The  Church  of  God,  my  dear  friends,  not 
only  holds  and  is  the  full  deposit  of  truth,  not  only  preaches  it, 
not  only  pours  forth  her  sacramental  graces — but  the  Church — 
the  Catholic  Church — mixes  herself  up  with  the  thousand  ques- 
tions of  the  day — not  as  guiding  them,  not  as  dictating  or  iden- 
tifying herself  with  this  policy  or  that,  but  as  simply  coming  in 
to  declare,  in  every  walk  of  life,  certain  principles  and  rules  ol 
conduct.  Here  let  me  advert  to  the  false  principle  that,  outside 
of  the  four  walls  of  her  temples,  she  has  nothing  to  do.  with 
man's  daily  work.  This  principle  was  followed  out  in  France  in 
1792-3,  when  not  only  was  the  Church  separated  from  all  legiti- 
mate influence  in  society,  but  she  was  completely  deposed,  for 
the  time  being.  And  now,  the  favorite  expression  of  this  day 
of  ours  is:  "  Oh,  let  the  Catholic  priests  preach  until  they  are 
hoarse ;  let  them  fire  away  until  they  are  black  in  the  face  ;  but 
let  us  have  no  Catholicity  here,  Catholicity  there,  the  priest 
everywhere !  We  will  not  submit  to  it,  like  the  Irish,  getting 
the  priest  into  every  social  relation ;  taking  his  advice  in  every- 
thing; acting  under  his  counsel  in  everything.  We  will  not 
submit  to  be  a  priest-ridden  people.  We  will  not  submit  to 
have  the  priest  near  us  at  all,  outside  of  his  church.  If  he 
stays  there,  well  and  good;  let  those  who  want  him  go  to  him, 
but  outside  the  church-walls  let  every  man  do  as  he  pleases." 
For  the  last  century  all  the  Catholic  nations  of  Europe — in 
fact,  the  whole  world  —  have,  more  or  less,  acted  upon  this 
principle.  Let  us  see  the  advantages  of  all  this.  Has  the  world, 
society,  governments,  legislatures,  gained  anything?  To  the 
Church  they  say,  "  Stand  aside  ;  don't  presume  to  come  into 
the  Senate  or  the  Parliament.  We  will  make  laws  without  you. 
Don't  be  preaching  to  me  about  God  ;  I  can  get  along  without 


J2  The  Christian  Man 

you."  The  world  has  tried  its  hand,  and  it  has  produced  that 
beautiful  man  I  have  described  to  you — the  man  of  the  day — 
the  accomplished  man — the  gentleman — the  man  in  kid  gloves 
— the  man  who  is  so  well  dressed — the  man  with  the  gemmed 
watch  and  gold  chain — the  man  with  the  lacquered  hair  and 
well-trimmed  whisker.  Don't  trust  his  word — he  is  a  liar  ' 
Don't  trust  him.  Oh,  fathers  of  families,  children,  don't  have 
anything  to  say  to  him !  He  is  a  bad  man.  Keep  away  from 
him.  Close  the  doors  of  your  government  house — of  youi 
House  of  Representatives — against  him.  This  is  the  man  whom 
the  Church  knows  not  as  her  creation  ;  whom  the  world  and 
whom  society  have  to  fear.  If  this  is  the  best  thing  that  the 
world  has  created,  surely  it  ought  to  be  proud  of  its  offspring ! 
Society  lives  and  can  only  live  upon  the  purity  that  pervades 
the  domestic  circle  and  sanctifies  it ;  upon  the  truthfulness  and 
integrity  that  guard  all  the  social  relations  of  life  and  sanctify 
them  ;  and  upon  the  pure  and  disinterested  love  of  country 
upon  which  alone  true  patriotism  depends.  Stand  aside,  man 
of  the  day !  You  are  unfit  for  these  things.  Stand  aside.  O 
simulacrum  !  O  counterfeit  of  man,  stand  aside.  Thou  art 
not  fit  to  encumber  this  earth.  Where  is  the  truthfulness  of 
thy  intellect,  thou  scoffer  at  all  religion  ?  Where  is  the  purity 
of  thy  heart,  thou  faithless  husband  ?  Where  is  the  honesty  of 
thy  life,  thou  pilfering  politician  ?  Stand  aside  !  If  we  have 
nothing  better  than  you,  we  must  come  to  ruin.  Stand  forth, 
O  Christian  man,  and  let  us  see  what  we  can  make  of  thee  ! 
Hast  thou  principles,  O  Christian  man  ?  He  advances,  and 
says :  "  My  first  principle  is  this  :  that  the  Almighty  God  created 
me  responsible  for  every  wilful  thought,  and  word,  and  act  of 
my  life.  I  believe  in  that  responsibility  before  God.  I  believe 
that  these  thoughts,  and  words,  and  acts  shall  be  my  blessed- 
ness or  my  damnation  for  eternity."  These  are  the  first  prin- 
ciples of  the  Christian  man.  Give  me  a  man  that  binds  up 
eternity  with  his  thoughts,  and  his  words,  and  his  acts  of  to- 
day. I  warrant  you  he  will  be  very  careful  how  he  thinks,  how 
he  speaks,  and  how  he  acts.  I  will  trust  that  man,  because  he 
does  not  love  honesty  for  the  sake  of  man,  but  for  the  love  of 
his  own  soul ;  not  for  the  love  of  the  world,  but  for  the  love  of 
God.  Stand  forth,  O  Christian  man,  and  tell  us  what  are  thy 
principles  in  thy  domestic  relations,  which,  as  father  and  hus- 


The  Man  of  the  Day.  73 

band,  thou  hast  assumed.  He  comes  forth  and  says  :  "  I  believe, 
and  I  believe  it  on  the  peril  of  my  eternal  salvation,  that  I  must 
be  as  true  in  my  thought  and  in  my  act  to  the  woman  whom  I 
made  my  wife,  as  you,  a  priest,  are  to  the  altar  of  Jesus  Christ. 
I  believe  that,  as  long  as  the  Angel  of  Death  comes  not  between 
me  and  that  woman,  she  is  to  be  queen  of  my  heart,  the 
mother  and  mistress  in  my  household ;  and  that  no  power,  save 
the  hand  of  God,  can  separate  us,  or  break  the  tie  that  binds 
us."  Well  said !  thou  faithful  Christian  man.  Well  said  !  Tell 
us  about  thy  relations  to  thy  children.  The  Christian  man 
answers  and  says  :  "  I  believe  and  I  know  that  if  one  of  these 
children  rises  up  in  judgment  against  me,  and  cries  out  neglect 
and  bad  education  and  bad  example  against  me,  that  alone 
will  weigh  me  down  and  cast  me  into  hell  forever."     Well  said, 

0  Christian  father !  You  are  the  man  of  the  day,  so  far.  With 
you  the  domestic  hearth  and  circle  will  remain  holy.  When 
your  shadow,  after  your  day's  labor,  falls  across  your  humble 
threshold,  it  is  the  shadow  of  a  man  loving  the  God  of  all 
fidelity,  and  of  all  sanctity,  in  his  soul.  What  are  your  rela- 
tions to  your  friends,  O  Christian  man  ?  He  answers  :  "  I  love 
my  friend  in  Jesus  Christ.  I  believe  that  when  I  speak  of  my 
friend,  or  of  my  fellow-man,  every  word  I  utter  goes  forth  into 
eternity,  there  to  be  registered  for  or  against  me,  as  true  or  false. 

1  believe  that  when  my  friend,  or  neighbor  and  fellow-man,  is  in 
want  or  in  misery,  and  that  he  sends  forth  the  cry  for  consolation 
or  for  relief,  I  am  bound  to  console  him,  or  to  relieve  him,  as  if  I 
saw  my  Lord  Himself  lying  prostrate  and  helpless  before  me." 
"  Who  are  thy  enemies,  O  man  of  faith?"  He  answers,  "  Ene- 
mies I  have  none."  "  Do  you  not  hold  him  as  an  enemy  who 
harms  you  ?  "  "  No,  I  see  him  in  my  own  sin,  and  in  the  bleed- 
ing hands  and  open  side  of  Jesus  Christ,  my  God  ;  and  whatever 
I  see  there  I  must  love  in  spite  of  all  injustice."  "What  are 
your  political  relations  ?  "  He  answers  and  says,  "  If  any  one 
says  of  another,  he  is  a  man  who  fattened  upon  corruption,  no 
man  can  say  so  of  me.  I  entered  into  the  arena  of  my  country's 
service,  and  came  forth  with  unstained  hands.  Whatever  I 
have  done,  I  have  done  for  love  of  my  country,  because  my 
country  holds  upon  me  the  strongest  and  highest  claims  after 
those  of  God." 

Heart  and  mind  are  there.     Oh,  how  grand  is  the   character 


74  The  Christian  Man 

that  is  thus  built  up  upon  Faith  and  Love !  Oh,  how  grand  is 
this  man,  so  faithful  at  home,  so  truthful  abroad,  so  irreproach- 
able in  the  senate  or  the  forum  !  Where  shall  we  find  him  ? 
I  answer,  the  Catholic  Church  alone  can  produce  him.  This  is 
a  bold  assertion.  I  do  not  deny  that  he  may  exist  outside  the 
Catholic  Church  ;  but  if  he  does  it  is  as  an  exception ;  and  the 
exception  proves  the  rule.  I  do  not  deny  much  of  what  I  have 
said,  if  not  all,  to  that  glorious  name  that  shall  live  forever  as 
the  very  type  of  patriotism,  and  honor,  and  virtue,  and  truth — 
the  grand,  the  majestic,  the  immortal  name  of  George  Wash- 
ington, the  father  of  his  country !  But,  just  as  a  man  may 
find  a  rare  and  beautiful  flower,  even  in  the  field,  or  by  the 
roadside,  and  he  is  surprised  and  says,  "  How  came  it  to  be 
here?  How  came  it  to  grow  here?"  When  he  goes  into  the 
garden,  the  cultivated  spot,  he  finds  it  as  a  matter  of  course, 
because  the  soil  was  prepared  for  it,  and  the  seed  was  sown. 
There  is  no  surprise,  no  astonishment,  to  find  the  man  of  whom 
I  speak — the  Christian  man — in  the  Catholic  Church.  If  you 
want  to  find  him,  as  a  matter  of  course — if  you  want  to  find 
the  agencies  that  produce  him — if  you  want  to  find  the  soil  he 
must  grow  in,  if  he  grows  at  all,  you  must  go  into  the  Catholic 
Church,  decidedly.  Nowhere  out  of  the  Catholic  Church  is 
the  bond  of  matrimony  indissoluble.  In  the  Catholic  Church, 
the  greatest  ruffian,  the  most  depraved  man  that  ever  lived, 
the  most  faithless  woman  that  ever  cursed  the  world,  if  they 
are  faithless  to  everything,  they  must  remain  joined  by  the 
adamantine  bonds  that  the  Church  will  not  allow  any  man  to 
break.  Secondly,  the  only  security  you  have  for  all  I  have 
spoken  of  as  enriching  man  in  his  social  and  political  relations, 
is  in  conscience.  If  a  man  has  no  conscience,  he  can  have  no 
truth  ;  he  loses  his  power  of  discerning  the  difference  between 
truth  and  falsehood.  If  a  man  has  no  conscience,  he  loses  all 
knowledge  and  all  sense  of  sin.  If  a  man  has  no  conscience, 
he  loses,  by  degrees,  even  the  very  abstract  faith  that  there  is 
for  good  in  him.  Conscience  is  a  most  precious  gift  of  God  ; 
but,  like  every  other  faculty  in  the  soul  of  man,  unless  it  be 
exercised,  it  dies  out.  The  conscience  of  man  must  be  made 
a  living  tribunal  within  him,  and  he  must  bring  his  own  soul 
and  his  own  life  before  that  tribunal.  A  man  may  kneel  down, 
he  may  pray  to  God.  he  may  listen  to  the  voice  of  the  preacher 


The  Man  of  the  Day.  75 

attentively  and  seriously;  but  in  the  Catholic  Church  alone, 
there  is  one  sacrament,  and  that  sacrament  the  most  frequent, 
and  the  most  necessary,  after  baptism — and  that  is  the  sacra- 
ment of  penance ;  the  going  to  confession — an  obligation 
imposed  under  pain  of  mortal  sin,  and  of  essential  need  to 
every  Catholic  at  stated  times  ;  an  obligation  that  no  Catholic 
can  shrink  from  without  covering  himself  with  sin.  This  is  at 
once  a  guarantee  for  the  existence  of  a  conscience  in  a  man, 
and  a  restraining  power,  which  is  the  very  test,  and  the  crucial 
test,  of  a  man's  life.  A  Catholic  may  sin,  like  other  men ;  he 
may  be  false  in  every  relation  of  life ;  he  may  be  false  in  the 
domestic  circle ;  he  may  be  false  socially ;  he  may  be  false 
politically ;  but  one  thing  you  may  be  sure  of,  that  he  either 
does  not  go  to  confession  at  all,  or,  if  he  goes  to  confession, 
and  comes  to  the  holy  altar,  there  is  an  end  to  his  falsehood, 
there  is  an  end  to  his  sin ;  and  the  whole  world  around  him,  in 
the  social  circle,  the  domestic  circle,  the  political  circle,  receives 
an  absolute  guarantee,  an  absolute  proof  that  that  man  must 
be  all  that  I  have  described  the  Christian  man  to  be — a  man  in 
whom  every  one,  in  every  relation  of  life,  may  trust  and  con- 
fide. This  is  the  test.  Don't  speak  to  me  of  Catholics  who 
don't  give  us  this  test.  When  a  Catholic  does  not  go  to  the 
sacraments,  I  could  no  more  trust  in  him  than  in  any  other 
man.  I  say  to  you,  don't  talk  to  me  about  Catholics  who 
don't  go  to  the  sacraments.  I  have  nothing  to  say  of  them, 
only  to  pray  for  them,  to  preach  to  them,  and  to  beseech  them 
to  come  to  this  holy  sacrament,  where  they  will  find  grace  to 
enable  them  to  live  up  to  the  principles  which  they  had  for- 
saken. But  give  me  the  practical  Catholic,  the  intellei  tual 
man  !  Give  me  the  man  of  faith.  Give  me  the  man  of  human 
power  and  intelligence,  and  the  higher  power,  divine  principle 
and  divine  love  !  With  that  man,  as  with  the  lever  of  Archim- 
edes, I  will  move  the  world. 

Let  me  speak  to  you,  in  conclusion,  of  such  a  man.  Let  me 
speak  to  you  of  one  whose  form,  as  I  beheld  it  in  early  youth, 
now  looms  up  before  me ;  so  fills,  in  imagination,  the  halls  of 
my  memory,  that  I  behold  him  now  as  I  beheld  him  years  ago, 
majestic  in  stature,  an  eye  gleaming  with  intellectual  power,  a 
mighty  hand  uplifted,  waving,  quivering  with  honest  indigna- 
tion    his  voice  thundering  like  the  voice  of  a  god  in  the  tern- 


7  6  The  Christian  Man 

pest,  against  all  injustice  and  all  dishonor.  I  speak  of  Ireland's 
greatest  son,  the  immortal  Daniel  O'Connell.  He  came.  He 
found  a  nation  the  most  faithful,  the  most  generous  on  the  face 
of  the  earth  ;  he  found  a  people  not  deficient  in  any  power  of 
human  intelligence  or  human  courage  ;  chaste  in  their  domestic 
relations,  reliable  to  each  other,  and  truthful — and,  above  all,  a 
people  who,  for  centuries  and  centuries,  had  lived,  and  died, 
and  suffered,  to  uphold  the  Faith  and  the  Cross.  He  came,  and 
he  found  that  people,  after  the  rebellion  of  Ninety-Eight,  down- 
trodden in  the  blood-stained  dust,  and  bound  in  chains.  The 
voice  of  Ireland  was  silent.  The  heart  of  the  nation  was 
broken.  Every  privilege,  civil  and  otherwise,  was  taken  from 
them.  They  were  commanded,  as  the  only  condition  of  the 
toleration  of  their  existence,  to  lie  down  in  their  blood-stained 
fetters  of  slavery,  and  to  be  grateful  to  the  hand  that  only  left 
them  life.  He  brought  to  that  prostrate  people  a  Christian 
spirit  and  a  Christian  soul.  He  brought  his  mighty  faith  in 
God  and  in  God's  Holy  Church.  He  brought  his  great  human 
faith  in  the  power  of  justice,  and  in  the  omnipotence  of  right. 
He  roused  the  people  from  their  lethargy.  He  sent  the  cry 
for  justice  throughout  the  land,  and  he  proved  his  own  sin- 
cerity to  Ireland  and  to  her  cause,  by  laying  down  an  income 
of  sixty  thousand  pounds  a  year,  that  he  might  enter  into  her 
service.  He  showed  the  people  the  true  secret  of  their 
strength  himself.  Thundering  to-day  for  justice  in  the  halls  of 
the  English  Senate,  on  the  morrow  morning  he  was  seen  in  the 
confessional,  and  kneeling  at  the  altar  to  receive  his  God — with 
one  hand  leaning  upon  the  eternal  cause  of  God's  justice,  the 
other  leaning  upon  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Upheld  by  these 
and  by  the  power  of  his  own  genius,  he  left  his  mark  upon  his 
age  ;  he  left  his  mark  upon  his  country !  This  was,  indeed,  the 
"  Man  of  his  Day !"  the  Christian  man,  of  whom  the  world 
stood  in  awe— faithful  as  a  husband  and  father ;  faithful  as  a 
friend ;  the  delight  of  all  who  knew  him  !  faithful  in  his  dis- 
interested labors !  with  an  honorable,  honest  spirit  of  self- 
devotion  in  his  country's  cause!  He  raised  that  prostrate 
form  ;  he  struck  the  chains  from  those  virgin  arms,  and  placed 
upon  her  head  a  crown  of  free  worship  and  free  education.  He 
made  Ireland  to  be,  in  a  great  measure,  what  he  always  prayed 
and  hoped  she  might  be,  "  The  Queen  of  the  Western  Isles,  and 


The  Man  of  the  Day.  jj 

the  proudest  gem  that  the  Atlantic  bears  upon  the  surface  of 
its  green  waters."  Oh,  if  there  were  a  few  more  like  him  ! 
Oh,  that  our  race  would  produce  a  few  more  like  him !  Our 
O'Connell  was  Irish  of  the  Irish  and  Catholic  of  the  Catholic. 
We  are  Irish  and  we  are  Catholic.  How  is  it  we  have  not 
more  men  like  him  ?  Is  the  stamina  wanting  to  us  ?  Is  the 
intellect  wanting  to  us  ?  Is  the  power  of  united  expression  in 
the  interests  of  society  wanting  to  us?  No  !  But  the  religious 
Irishman  of  our  day  refuses  to  be  educated,  and  the  educated 
Irishman  of  to-day  refuses  to  be  religious.  These  two  go  hand 
in  hand.  Unite  the  highest  education  with  the  deepest  and 
tenderest  practical  love  of  God  and  of  your  religion,  and  I  see 
before  me,  in  many  of  the  young  faces  on  which  I  look,  the 
stamp  of  our  Irish  genius  ;  I  see  before  me  many  who  may  be 
the  fathers  and  legislators  of  the  Republic,  the  leaders  of  our 
race,  and  the  heroes  of  our  common  country  and  our  common 
religion. 


THE   CATHOLIC    CHURCH     THE 
MOTHER    OF    LIBERTY." 


[Delivered  in  St.  Paul's  Church,  Brooklyn,  March  3,  1872.  | 

Y  friends :  On  last  Tuesday  evening,  when  I  had  the 
honor  of  addressing  you,  I  proposed  to  you  a  subject 
for  your  consideration,  which,  perhaps,  may  have  struck 
a  good  many  amongst  you  as  strange.  We  are  such 
worshippers  of  this  age  of  ours,  that  when  the  "  man  of  the  day," 
as  he  is  called,  is  put  before  us  in  any  other  than  an  amiable 
light,  no  matter  how  true  it  may  be,  it  seems  strange,  and  it  is  a 
hazardous  thing  for  me  to  attempt.  But  there  are  many  among 
you  that  will  consider  the  thing  I  have  undertaken  to  do  this 
evening,  a  still  more  hazardous  attempt — namely,  to  prove  to 
you  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  the  foster-mother  of  human 
liberty.  Was  there  ever  so  strange  a  proposition  heard — the 
Catholic  Church  the  mother  of  human  liberty  !  If  I  undertook 
to  prove  that  the  Catholic  Church  was. the  instrument  chosen  by 
Almighty  God  to  save  Christianity,  I  might  do  it  on  the  testi- 
mony of  Protestant  historians.  I  might  quote,  for  instance, 
Guizot,  the  French  statesman  and  historian,  who  repeatedly  and 
emphatically  asserts  that  only  for  the  organization  of  bishops, 
priests,  monks,  etc.,  what  is  called  "the  Church,"  the  Christian 
religion  would  never  have  been  preserved  ;  never  have  been  able 
to  sustain  the  shock  of  the  incursions  of  the  barbarians  of  the 
North  upon  the  Roman  Empire  ;  and  never  have  been  preserved 
through  the  following  ages  of  confusion,  and,  some  people  say, 
darkness.  I  could  quote  the  great  German  historian,  Neander, 
who  was  not  only  a  Protestant,  but  bitterly  opposed  to  the 
Catholic  Church,  who  repeats,  again  and  again,  the  self-sam# 


The  Catholic  Church  the  Mother  of  Liberty.  79 

proposition.  ''Were  it  not,"  said  he,  "  for  the  Church,  the 
Christian  religion  must  have  perished  during  the  time  that 
elapsed  between  the  fifth  and  the  tenth  centuries."  I  might,  I 
say  again,  find  it  easy  to  prove  any  one  of  these  propositions, 
with  less  fear  of  cavil.  Ah,  but  this  is  quite  another  thing,  you 
will  say  in  your  own  minds.  This  man  tells  us  that  he  is  pre- 
pared to  prove  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  the  foster-mother  of 
human  liberty.  Why,  "  the  man  of  the  day,"  whom  we  were 
considering  on  Tuesday  evening,  is  not  a  very  amiable  character. 
He  has  a  great  many  vices  ;  there  are  a  great  many  moral  de- 
formities about  him — this  boasted  man  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  But  there  is  one  thing  that  he  lays  claim  to  :  he  says 
— and  he  says  it  as  something  which  no  man  can  gainsay — that 
he  is  a  free  man  ;  that  he  is  not  like  those  men  who  lived  in  the 
ages  when  the  Catholic  Church  had  power  ;  when  she  was  en- 
abled to  enforce  her  laws.  ."Then,  indeed,"  he  says,  "  men 
were  slaves,  but  now,  whatever  our  faults  may  be,  we  have  free- 
dom. Nay,  more,  we  will  add,  we  have  freedom  in  spite  of  the 
Catholic  Church.  We  are  free  because  we  have  succeeded  in 
disarming  the  Catholic  Church  ;  in  taking  the  power  out  of  her 
hands.  We  are  free  because  our  legislation  and  the  spirit  of  our 
age  is  hostile  to  the  Catholic  Church.  How  then,  monk,  do  you 
presume  to  come  here  and  tell  us,  the  men  of  the  day,  that  this 
Church  of  yours — this  Church  whose  very  name  we  associate 
with  the  idea  of  intellectual  slavery — that  she  is  the  foster- 
mother  of  human  liberty?"  Well!  I  need  not  tell  you,  my 
friends,  that  there  is  nothing  easier  than  to  make  assertions  ; 
that  there  is  nothing  easier  than  to  proclaim  such  and  such 
things ;  lay  them  down  as  if  they  were  the  law ;  tumble  it  our 
as  if  it  was  gospel.  It  may  be  a  lie.  Out  with  it!  Assert  it 
strongly.  Repeat  it.  Don't  let  it  be  put  down.  Assert  it 
again  and  again.  Even  though  it  be  a  lie,  yet  a  great  many 
people  will  believe  it.  Nothing  is  easier  than  to  make  assertions 
without  thinking  well  on  what  we  say.  Now,  let  me  ask  you, 
this  evening,  to  do  what  very  few  men  in  this  age  of  ours  do  at 
all ;  and  that  is,  to  reflect  a  little.  It  is  simply  astonishing,  con- 
sidering the  powers  that  God  has  given  to  man— the  power  of 
thought,  the  power  of  reflection,  the  power  of  analysing  facts 
and  weighing  statements,  the  power  of  reducing  things  to  their 
first  principles — I  say  it  is  astonishing  to  think  of  that,  and  to 


80  The  Catholic  Church 

look  around  us  and  see  how  few  the  men  are  who  reason  at  all 
— who  reflect — who  take  time  for  thought ;  how  many  there  are 
who  use  words  of  which  they  do  not  know  the  meaning.  Take, 
for  instance,  that  word  "  liberty."  I  need  hardly  tell  you  that 
I  must  explain  it  to  you  before  I  advance  the  proposition  that 
the  Catholic  Church  is  the  mother  of  liberty. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  the  word  "  Liberty,"  so  dear  to  us 
all  ?  We  are  always  boasting  of  it ;  the  patriot  is  always  aspir- 
ing to  it ;  the  revolutionist  makes  it  justify  all  his  wiles  and  all 
his  conspiracies.  It  is  the  word  that  floats  upon  the  glorious 
folds  of  the  nation's  banners  as  they  are  flung  out  upon  the 
breeze  over  the  soldier's  head  ;  and  he  is  cheered  in  his  last  mo- 
ments by  the  sacred  sound  of  liberty !  It  is  a  word  dear  to  us 
all — our  boast.  What  is  the  boast  of  America  ?  That  it  is  the 
Land  of  Freedom.  Yes  ;  but  I  ask  you,  Do  you  know  what  it 
means?  Liberty!  Just  reflect  upon  it  a  little.  Does  liberty 
mean  freedom  from  restraint  ?  Does  liberty,  in  your  mind, 
mean  freedom  from  any  power,  government,  restraint  of 
legislation?  Is  this  your  meaning  of  liberty?  For  in- 
stance :  is  this  your  meaning  of  liberty — that  every  man  can 
do  what  he  likes?  If  so,  you  cannot  complain  if  you  are 
stopped  by  the  robber  on  the  roadside,  and  he  puts  his  pistol 
to  your  head  and  says,  "  Your  money  or  your  life  !  "  You  can- 
not complain ;  he  is  only  using  his  liberty  in  doing  what  he 
likes.  Does  liberty  mean  that  the  murderer  may  come  and  put 
his  knife  in  you  ?  Does  liberty  mean  that  the  dishonest  man  is 
to  be  allowed  to  pilfer?  Is  this  liberty?  This  is  freedom  from  re- 
straint. But  is  it  liberty  ?  Most  certainly  not.  You  will  not  con- 
sider that  you  are  slaves  because  you  live  under  laws  that  tell  you 
that  you  must  not  steal ;  that  you  must  not  murder;  that  you 
must  not  interfere  with  or  violate  each  other's  rights,  but  that 
you  must  respect  those  of  each  other ;  and  if  you  don't  do  that 
you  must  be  punished.  You  don't  consider  you  are  slaves 
because  you  are  under  the  restraint  of  law.  Whatever  liberty 
means,  therefore,  it  does  not,  in  its  true  meaning,  imply  simple 
and  mere  freedom  from  restraint.  Yet,  how  many  there  are 
who  use  this  word  and  who  attach  this  meaning  to  it.  What  is 
liberty?  There  are  in  man — in  the  soul  of  man — two  great 
powers — God-like,  angelic,  spiritual — viz. :  the  intelligence  of 
the  mind  and  the  will.     The  intelligence  of  the  human  mind. 


The  Mother  of  Liberty.  8 1 

the  soul,  and  the  will,  are  the  true  fountains  and  the  scat  of 
liberty.  What  is  the  freedom  of  the  intelligence  ?  What  is  the 
freedom  of  the  will?  There  are  no  other  powers  in  man  capa- 
ble of  this  freedom  except  these  two.  If  you  ask  mc,  in  what 
does  the  freedom  of  the  intelligence  and  of  the  will  of  man 
consist,  I  answer,  the  freedom  of  the  intellect  consists  in  being 
free  from  error — from  intellectual  error.  The  freedom  of  man's 
intelligence  consists  in  its  being  perfectly  free  from  the  dangers 
and  liability  of  believing  that  which  is  false.  The  slavery  of 
the  intelligence  in  man  is  submission  in  mind  and  in  belief  to 
that  which  is  a  lie.  If,  for  instance,  I  came  here  this  evening, 
and  if,  by  the  power  of  language,  by  plausibility  of  words,  by 
persuasiveness,  I  got  any  man  amongst  you  to  believe  a  lie,  and 
take  that  lie  as  truth,  and  admit  it  into  his  mind  as  truth,  and 
admit  it  as  a  principle  that  is  right,  and  just,  and  true,  when  it 
is  false  and  unjust  and  a  lie — that  man  is  intellectually  a  slave. 
Falsehood  is  the  slavery  of  the  intelligence.  Reflect  a  little 
upon  this.  It  is  well  worth  reflecting  upon.  It  is  a  truth  that 
is  not  grasped  or  held  by  the  men  of  this  century  of  ours. 
There  was  a  time  when  it  was  considered  a  disreputable  thing 
to  believe  a  lie.  There  was  a  time  when  men  were  ashamed  of 
believing  what,  even  by  possibility,  could  be  a  lie.  Now-a-days, 
men  glory  in  it.  It  was  but  a  short  time  ago  a  popular  orator 
and  lecturer  in  England,  speaking  of  the  multitude  of  religious 
sects  that  are  there — speaking  of  those  who  assert  that  Christ 
is  God,  and  of  those  who  assert  that  He  is  not  God ; — of  those 
who  assert  that  there  are  three  persons  in  the  Trinity,  and  of 
those  who  assert  that  there  is  no  Trinity ; — of  those  who  assert 
that  good  works  are  necessary  for  salvation,  and  of  those  who 
assert  that  good  works  are  not  necessary  at  all ; — of  those  who 
assert  that  Christ  is  present  on  the  altar,  and  of  those  who  say 
it  is  a  damnable  heresy  to  assert  that  He  is  there  at  all ; — speak- 
ing of  all  these,  he  said,  "  The  multitude  of  sects  and  churches 
in  England  is  the  glory  of  our  age  and  of  our  people,  for  it 
shows  what  a  religious  people  we  are."  My  God  !  A  man  be- 
lieves a  lie ;  a  man  takes  a  lie  to  him  as  if  it  were  the  truth  of 
God ;  a  man  takes  an  intellectual  falsehood — a  thin*  that  is 
false  in  itself— a  thing  that  has  no  real  existence  in  fad  —a  thing 
that  God  never  said,  and  never  thought  of  saying  ;  af  d  he  lays 
that  religious  lie  upon  the  altar  of  his  soul,  and  he  \  dws  down 

6 


82  The  Catholic  Church 

and  does  homage  to  it  as  if  it  were  the  truth !  And  then  he 
comes  out  and  says  :  "  It  may  be  false  ;  but  you  know  it  is  a 
religious  falsehood ;  and  it  is  so  respectable  and  religious  to 
have  a  multitude  of  sects,  and  it  shows  what  a  good  people  we 
are !"  The  very  definition  of  intellectual  freedom  which  I  am 
about  to  give  you,  I  take  from  the  highest  authority.  I  will  not 
quote  for  you,  my  friends,  the  words  of  man,  but  I  will  quote 
to  you  the  Word  of  God — of  God  himself — who  ought  to  know 
best ;  of  God  himself,  who  made  man  and  gave  him  his  intelli- 
gence and  his  freedom  ;  of  God  himself,  who  has  declared  that 
the  freedom  of  the  human  intellect  lies  in  the  possession  of  the 
truth — the  knowledge  of  the  truth — the  grasping  of  the  truth 
— the  exclusion,  by  that  very  fact,  of  all  error. 

Christ,  our  Lord,  said  :  "  You  shall  know  the  truth,  and  the 
truth  shall  make  you  free."  You  shall  know  the  truth,  and  in 
the  knowledge  of  that  truth  will  lie  your  freedom.  Mind  you, 
He  did  not  say:  "I  will  send  you  groping  after  the  truth." 
No  !  But  you  shall  know  it — you  shall  have  it — no  doubt  about 
it !  He  did  not  say  :  "  Here  is  a  book  ;  here  is  my  word  ;  take 
it  and  look  for  the  truth  in  it ;  and  if  you  happen  to  find  it, 
well  and  good  ;  if  not,  you  are  a  religious  man  for  the  very  seek- 
ing." He  did  not  say :  "Your  duty  is  to  seek  for  the  truth  ;  to 
look  for  it " — no  ;  but  he  said :  "  You  shall  have  it,  and  you 
shall  know  it ;  and  that  shall  make  your  freedom  ;  and  the  truth 
shall  make  you  free  !"  I  lay  it  down  therefore,  as  a  first  prin- 
ciple, that  the  very  definition  of  intellectual  freedom  lies  in  the 
possession  of  the  truth. 

Now,  my  friends,  before  I  go  any  further,  I  may  as  well  at 
once  come  home  to  my  subject,  and  that  is,  that  "  The  Catholic 
Church  alone  is  the  foster-mother  of  intellectual  freedom." 
Afterwards  we  will  come  to  the  freedom  of  the  will.  We  will 
ask  what  it  is,  and  apply  the  same  principles  in  answering  it. 
There  is  in  the  Catholic  Church  a  power  which  she  has  always 
exercised ;  and  strange  to  say,  it  is  the  very  exercise  ot  that 
power  which  forms  the  world's  chief  accusation  against  her. 
And  that  is,  the  power  of  defining,  as  articles  of  faith  and  dogma 
— as  what  we  arc  to  believe  beyond  all  doubt,  all  cavil,  beyond 
all  speculation,  what  she  holds  and  knows  to  be  true.  There  is 
this  distinguishing  feature  between  the  Catholic  Church  and  all 
Beets  that   call  themselves   religious — that   she   always  speaks 


The  Mother  of  Liberty.  83 

clearly.  Every  child  that  belongs  to  her,  every  man  that  hears 
her  voice,  knows  precisely  what  to  believe,  knows  precisely  what 
the  Church  teaches.  Never  does  she  leave  a  soul  in  doubt. 
What  can  be  more  striking  than  the  contrast  which  Protestant- 
ism presents  to  the  Catholic  Church  in  this  respect.  In  Eng- 
land, whenever  any  question  of  doctrine  or  discipline  is  raised, 
the  Anglican  bishops  seem  lost  in  utter  perplexity,  not  knowing 
what  to  say.  Be  the  difficulty  great  or  small,  it  is  all  the  same. 
From  baptismal  regeneration  or  sacerdotal  power  and  office, 
down  to  the  question  of  lighting  a  candle  or  the  cut  of  a  surplice 
they  don't  know  what  to  say,  and  their  shifting  and  vacillating 
words  are  those  of  men  without  power,  authority,  light,  or 
knowledge.  The  final  decision,  whenever  it  comes,  is  from 
"  the  Queen  in  council,"  echoing  the  sentence  which  popular 
tumult  may  dictate,  and  narrowing  by  each  successive  decision 
the  amount  of  positive  belief  and  of  Christian  practice  ;  now 
lopping  off  a  sacrament,  now  mutilating  the  liturgy,  now  deny- 
ing some  ancient  and  hitherto  accepted  point  of  Christian  faith 
as  "  not  necessarily  involved  or  enforced  in  the  formularies  of 
the  Church  of  England,"  now  dissolving  some  indissoluble  bond 
which  God  himself  made,  constantly  insisting  on  "  the  wise 
latitude  and  toleration  of  the  Church,"  but  never  by  any  chance 
asserting  a  single  dogma  of  belief,  or  maintaining  a  single  point 
of  ancient  Christian  morality  ;  so  that  no  man  knows  what  to 
believe  or  what  he  is  strictly  obliged  to  do.  The  Catholic 
Church,  on  the  other  hand,  comes  out  on  a  question  affecting 
the  existence  of  God,  Heaven,  the  Revelation  of  Scripture,  the 
Divinity  of  Jesus  Christ.  She  gives  to  the  Church  on  this  or 
that  article  of  faith  language  as  clear  as  a  bell — language  so 
clear  and  decided  that  every  child  may  know  what  God  has 
revealed;  that  this  is  what  God  teaches,  this  is  the  truth.  But 
the  "Man  of  the  Day"  says:  "What  right  has  the  Church  to 
impose  this  on  you?  Are  you  not  a  slave  to  believe  it  ?  "  I 
answer  at  once :  "  If  it  be  a  lie,  you  are  a  slave  to  believe  it. 
If  it  be  not  a  lie,  but  the  truth — in  the  very  belief  of  it,  then, — 
in  the  knowledge  of  it, — lies  your  freedom,  according  to  the 
words  of  Christ :  '  You  shall  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall 
make  you  free.'  " 

The  whole  question  hinges  upon  this :  Has  the  Church  the 
power  and  the  authority  to  teach  you  what  is  the  truth  ?     She 


84  The  Catholic  Church 

at  once  falls  back  upon  the  Scriptures  and  lays  her  hand  upon 
the  words  of  Jesus  Christ,  saying,  "  Go  and  teach  all  nations 
teach  them  all  truth ;  I  will  send  the  Spirit  of  Truth  upon  you 
to  abide  with  you,  and  I,  Myself,  will  be  with  you  all  days  to 
the  end  of  the  world  ;  and  the  Gates  of  Hell, — that  is  to  say, 
the  spirit  of  error, — shall  never,  never,  never  prevail  against  My 
Church*!  "  If  that  be  true,  the  whole  question  is  settled.  If 
that  word  be  true — if  Jesus  Christ  be  the  God  of  Truth,  as  we 
know  Him  to  be — then  the  whole  controversy  is  at  an  end.  '  He 
commands  us  to  hear  the  Church,  to  accept  her  teachings,  to 
grasp  them,  being  the  truth,  with  our  minds,  as  though  we 
heard  them  immediately  from  the  lips  of  our  Lord  God  Him 
self,  who  is  the  very  quintessence  of  truth  and  of  intellectual 
freedom  ;  for  intellectual  freedom  lies  in  a  knowledge  of  the 
truth.  And  now,  let  me  give  you  a  familiar  proof  of  this.  Let 
me  suppose  now,  that,  instead  of  being  what  I  am — a  Catholic 
priest  and  a  monk — that  I  was  (God  between  us  and  harm  !)  a 
Methodist,  a  Presbyterian,  or  that  I  was  a  Baptist,  an  Anabap- 
tist, or  anything  of  that  kind,  or  a  Quaker,  or  a  Shaker,  or  any- 
thing else  you  like.  And  suppose  that  I  came  here,  a  man  of  a 
certain  amount  of  intellect  and  of  originality,  and  that  I  had  taken 
up,  or  that  I  had  dreamt,  last  night,  some  crooked  view  of  the 
Scriptures,  and  that  I  said  in  my  own  mind,  "  Well,  perhaps, 
after  all,  Christ  did  not  die  on  the  cross  ;  perhaps,  that  was  one 
of  those  fictions  that  we  find  in  history ;"  and  that  I  then  came 
up  here,  on  this  altar,  and  put  that  lie  plausibly  and  forcibly  be- 
fore you,  and  told  you  how  many  other  lies  were  thus  told — how 
this  thing  was  proved  to  be  false,  and  that  thing  was  proved 
to  be  false — and  that  then  I  said  to  you,  "  What  evidence  have 
we  of  the  crucifixion  of  our  Lord  but  historical  evidence  ?  Per- 
haps, after  all,  it  was  only  a  myth."  When  we  look  into  our- 
selves, and  see  how  much  there  is  in  us  of  evil  and  how  little  of 
good,  and  then  think  of  Christ  coming  to  die  for  us  and  save  us  ! 
— indeed,  they  say,  there  is  a  question  whether  He  came  at  all 
or  not.  If  I  were  only  to  put  that  question  plausibly  to  you, 
what  is  to  hinder  me  from  deceiving  you  ?  What  is  to  hinder 
me,  if  I  am  able  to  do  it  eloquently  and  forcibly  ?  What  is  to 
save  some  of  you  from  being  imposed  upon,  and  some  of  you 
from  believing  me  ?  You  are  at  my  mercy,  so  far  as  I  can  raise 
a,  doubt  in  your  minds.     I  can  put  an  intellectual  chain  upon 


TIic  Mother  of  Liberty.  85 

you  You  are  at  my  mercy,  and  I  am  at  the  mercy  of  my  own 
idle  dreams.  Well,  let  us  take  things  as  they  are.  I  came  here 
as  a  Catholic  priest,  to  you,  who  are  Catholics.  If  I  were  here, 
this  evening,  to  breathe  one  breath — one  word — against  the  real 
presence  of  our  Lord,  or  against  the  infallibility  of  the  pope,  01 
against  the  indefectibility  of  the  Church,  or  against  the  powei 
of  the  priest  to  absolve  from  sin,  or  any  other  doctrine  of  the 
Catfiolic  Church — if  I  was  just  to  approach  it  with  the  faintest 
touch,  is  there  a  man  amongst  you — is  there  one  in  this  church 
— who  would  not  rise  up  and  say,  "You  lie!  You  are  a  heretic! 
You  are  a  false  teacher!  You  are  a  heathen  and  an  infidel!" 
If  I  dared  to  do  it,  could  I  have  the  slightest  influence  on  any 
one  of  you?  No.  And  why?  Because  you  know  the  truth.  Why? 
Because  the  Church  of  God  has  thrown  the  shield  of  dogma 
between  you  and  every  false  teacher — between  you  and  every 
one  who  would  try  to  make  you  believe  a  lie.  Isn't  this  freedom , 
Some  time  ago,  a  poor  man  from  the  county  Galway — my  own 
county — went  over  to  England,  to  earn  the  rent  by  reaping  the 
harvest.  He  happened  to  go  into  a  Protestant  church,  thinking 
it  was  Catholic,  and  everything  that  he  saw  there  confirmed  him 
in  the  idea  ;  for,  as  it  was  a  ritualistic  church,  he  saw  the  altar, 
the  tabernacle,  the  lights,  the  vestments,  everything,  in  fact, 
apparently  Catholic.  Our  poor  friend  said  his  prayers,  and  felt 
quite  at  his  ease  and  at  home,  until  the  sermon  began,  when,  to 
his  great  astonishment,  he  heard  the  preacher  insisting  on  our 
Lord's  presence  in  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  and  at  the  same  time 
lament  the  want  of  belief  in  this  mystery,  especially  on  the  part 
of  so  many  bishops  and  priests.  The  preacher  went  on  to  speak 
of  our  belief  in  Christ's  presence  as  if  it  were  an  act  of  piety 
rather  than  of  absolute  necessity  and  faith.  The  moment  the  Irish 
Catholic  heard  the  strange  lament  over  the  bishops  and  priests, 
and  the  hesitating,  faltering,  almost  apologetic  assertion  of  the 
mystery,  he  picked  up  his  hat  and  made  for  the  door,  for  he  at 
once  understood  that  he  was  in  a  Protestant  and  not  a  Catholic 
church.  Now,  I  ask  you,  who  was  the  free  man  in  that  church  ? 
Was  it  not  the  man  whose  intelligence,  humble  as  he  was,  un- 
educated as  he  was  in  worldly  learning,  but  with  the  knowledge 
of  the  Catholic  Church  in  his  soul — was  it  not  he  whose  intelli- 
gence instantly  rose  up  and  detected  the  false  religion  by  his 
knowledge  of  the  true  ?     Need  I  say  any  more  ?     Before  I  end 


86  The  Catholic  Church 

I  will  come  to  vindicate  the  Church,  my  mother,  as  is  my  duty, 
from  any  charge  of  ever  fostering  slavery,  or  of  ever  rivetting 
one  fetter  upon  the  intelligence  of  man.  But  I  think  I  have  so 
far  sufficiently  brought  it  home  to  the  intellect  of  every  one 
amongst  you  that  if  the  knowledge  of  the  truth,  the  possession 
of  the  truth,  the  grasping  of  the  truth,  creates  freedom  of  the 
intellect,  according  to  the  definition  of  it  by  the  word  of  our  Lord 
and  Saviour,  Jesus  Christ — that  man  alone  can  have  that  free- 
dom who  receives  the  truth,  knowing  it  to  be  the  truth,  from 
the  mouth  of  one  whom  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  declares  could 
never  teach  man  a  lie. 

But,  now,  we  pass  to  the  second  great  stronghold  of  freedom 
or  of  slavery  in  the  soul  of  man  ;  and  that  is,  the  will.  For,  you 
know  that,  strictly  speaking,  the  will  of  man — that  free  will  that 
God  gives  us — is  really  and  truly  the  subject-matter  either  of 
freedom  or  of  slavery.  If  a  man  has  the  freedom  of  his  will  he  is 
free  ;  if  a  man's  will  is  coerced  he  is  a  slave.  But  when  is  that 
will  coerced  ?  What  is  the  definition  of  the  word  "  freedom,' 
so  far  as  it  touches  human  will?  I  answer  at  once,  and  define 
the  freedom  of  the  human  will  to  be,  on  the  one  side,  obedience 
to  recognized  and  just  law,  and,  on  the  other  side,  freedom  from 
overruling  or  coercing  action  of  any  authority,  or  of  any  power 
that  is  not  legitimately  appointed  to  govern  and  rule  the  will. 
We  are  bound  to  obey  the  laws  and  legitimate  authorities  that 
govern  us,  nor  is  there  in  this  obedience  anything  unworthy  ot 
freedom,  seeing  that  law  and  authority  are  the  protectors  of  our 
rights  and  liberties.  But  we  are  slaves  if  we  are  bound  to  ob- 
serve laws  that  are,  in  themselves,  unjust — laws  that  involve  an 
immoral  act ;  and  no  man  but  a  slave  obeys  them.  Thus,  for 
instance,  if  the  law  of  the  land  tells  me  that  what  I  have  heard 
from  any  one  of  my  Catholic  children  at  the  confessional,  I  am 
to  go  and  make  a  deposition  of — that  is,  use  it  as  evidence 
against  him ;  if  the  law  said  that  (and  the  law  has  sometimes 
said  it),  the  Catholic  priest  knows,  and  every  Catholic  knows, 
that  the  observance  of  that  law  would  make  a  slave  of  the 
priest ;  it  would  destroy  his  overruling  conscience,  that  dictates 
to  his  will,  so  that  if  he  observed  that  law  he  would  be  a  slave ; 
but  if  he  died  rather  than  observe  it  he  would  be  a  martyr  and 
an  apostle  of  freedom.  Secondly,  the  freedom  of  the  will  lies 
in  being  free  from  every  influence,  from  every  coercing  power 


*  ^  The  Mother  of  Liberty.  87 

that  has  no  right  or  title  to  command  our  wills.  Who  has  a 
right  to  command  the  will  of  man  ?  Almighty  God,  who  made 
it.  Every  human  law  has  authority  only  inasmuch  as  it  is  the 
echo  of  the  eternal  voice,  commanding  or  prohibiting.  I  will 
only  obey  the  law  because  St.  Paul  tells  us  "  the  law  comes  from 
on  high" — that  all  power,  all  law,  comes  from  Almighty  God. 
Any  other  power  that  is  opposed  to  God  has  nothing  whatever 
to  say  to  the  will  of  man,  and  if  the  will  of  man  submits  to  the 
persuasion  or  coercion  of  that  power,  by  that  very  fact  it  be- 
comes a  slave. 

Now,  what  are  the  great  powers  that  assert  themselves  in 
this  our  age  upon  the  will  of  man  ?  What  are  the  great 
powers  that  make  slaves  of  us  ?  I  answer,  they  are  the  world 
around  us  and  its  principles — our  own  passions  within  us,  and 
our  sinful  inclinations.  Reflect  upon  it !  We  live  in  a  world 
that  has  certain  principles,  that  lays  down  certain  maxims  and 
acts  upon  them.  The  world  has  its  own  code  of  laws.  For 
instance,  a  man  is  insulted.  The  world  tells  him  to  go,  take  a 
revolver,  and  wipe  out  the  insult  in  the  blood  of  the  man  who 
dared  to  insult  him.  This  is  the  world's  law,  but  it  is  opposed 
to  God's  law,  which  says,  "  Love  your  enemies,  and  pardon 
them  for  my  sake  !"  The  world  says  to  a  man,  "  You  are  in  a 
good  position ;  you  have  place,  power,  influence,  patronage  ; 
you  have  it  in  your  power  to  enrich  yourself.  Ah  !  don't  be  so 
squeamish ;  don't  be  so  mealy-mouthed  ;  shove  a  friend  in 
here.  Let  a  man  have  a  chance  of  taking  up  his  own  pickings. 
Put  another  man  to  do  the  same  there.  Take  something  for 
yourself."  The  world  says  this,  and  I  believe  you  have  evi- 
dence of  it  every  other  day.  The  world  says  to  the  man  of 
pleasure:  "You  are  fond  of  certain  sins  of  impurity.  Ah,  but, 
my  dear  friend,  you  must  keep  that  thing  very  quiet.  Keep  it 
under  the  rose  as  long  as  you  can.  There  is  no  great  harm  in 
it.  It  is  only  the  weakness  of  our  nature.  You  may  go  on 
and  enjoy  yourself  as  much  as  you  choose ;  only  be  circum- 
spect about  it.  Keep  it  as  quiet  as  possible,  and  do  not  let 
your  secret  be  found  out."  The  great  sin  is  being  found  out. 
This  is  the  way  of  the  world.  It  thus  operates  upon  men.  It 
thus  influences  our  will,  and  makes  us  bow  down  and  conform 
to  the  manners  and  customs  of  those  around  us.  How  true 
this  is !      Is  there    anything   more    common  ?      I    have   heard 


88  The  Catholic  Church 

it  over  and  over  again  since  I  came  to  America :  "  Oh, 
father,  we  are  very  different  in  this  country  from  what  we 
were  in  the  old  country.  In  the  matter  of  going  to  Mass 
in  this  country  on  Sunday,  you  cannot  go  unless  you  are 
well-dressed.  In  the  old  country  they  go,  no  matter  how 
they  are.  In  this  country  people  would  look  on  it  as  queer  if 
you  did  not  go  as  well-dressed  as  your  neighbor.  In  the  old 
country  they  were  very  particular  about  stations,  and  about 
going  to  confession.  They  used  all  to  go  to  their  duty  at 
Christmas  and  Easter — and  often  more  frequently — but  in  this 
country  scarcely  anybody  goes  at  all."  This  is  the  language  I 
have  heard.  It  is  not  uncommon.  Now,  what  does  all  this 
mean?  What  has  this  country  or  that,  this  portion  of  the 
world  or  that,  this  maxim  of  the  world  or  that — what  has  it  to 
do  with  your  will  ?  Where,  in  reason — where,  in  faith — where, 
in  Scripture,  can  you  find  me  one  word  from  Almighty  God  to 
man  :  "  Son  of  man,  do  as  those  around  you  do  ;  conform  your 
life  to  the  usages  of  the  world  around  you — to  the  maxims  of 
the  world  in  which  you  live."  But  Christ  has  said  :  "  Be  not 
conformed  to  this  world,  for  the  friendship  of  this  world  is 
enmity  before  God."  The  passions  within  us — oh  !  those  ter- 
rible passions !  the  strong,  the  unreasoning,  the  lustful  desires 
of  youth — the  strong,  unreasoning,  revengeful  pride  of  man — 
the  strong,  unreasoning  desire  to  be  enriched  before  his  time  by 
means  which  are  accursed — the  strong  passions  within  him, 
whatever  they  may  be,  that  rise  up,  like  giants,  in  his  path — 
ah,  these  are  the  most  terrible  tyrants  of  all,  when  they  assume 
dominion  over  man — and,  above  all,  when  they  assume  the 
aggravated  and  detestable  dominion  of  habit.  Let  me  say  a 
word  to  you  about  this.  There  is  not  a  man  amongst  us  who 
hasn't  his  own  little  world  of  iniquity  within  him.  Not  one ! 
There  is  not  a  man  amongst  us,  even  of  those  who  are  within 
the  sanctuary,  that  must  not  work  out  his  salvation  with  fear 
and  trembling.  And  why?  Because  he  has  great  enemies  in 
his  own  passions.  Now,  the  Almighty  God's  design  is  that 
those  passions  should  become  completely  subject  to  the  domin- 
ion of  reason  by  the  free  will  of  man.  So  long  as  man  is  able 
to  keep  them  down,  to  subdue  them — so  long  as  a  man  is  able 
to  keep  himself  humble,  pure,  chaste,  temperate,  in  spite  of 
them,  that  man  is  free,  because  he  controls  and  keeps  down 


The  Mother  of  Liberty.  89 

nose  servants,  his  passions,  which  the  Almighty  God  nevei 
ntended  should  govern  him.  Now,  the  intention  of  Almighty 
God  is  that  we  should  keep  down  those  passions.  The  second 
intention  of  Almighty  God  is,  therefore,  that  if  they  rise — as 
rise  they  do,  in  many  cases — and,  for  a  time,  overpower  the 
soul,  and  induce  a  man  to  commit  this  sin  or  that — that  he 
must  at  once  rise  up  out  of  that  sin,  put  down  that  passion,  and 
chain  it  down  under  the  dominion  of  reason  and  will,  fortified 
by  divine  grace  ;  because  if  he  lets  it  remain,  and  allows  it  to 
subdue  him,  and  seduce  him  into  sin  again,  in  an  inconceivably 
short  time  that  passion  will  become  the  habit  and  the  tyrant  of 
his  life.  For  instance,  if  a  man  gets  drunk,  if  so,  I  ask  that 
man  and  say:  "My  dear  friend,  try  to  recall  the  first 
time  you  got  drunk.  Do  you  remember  next  morning  what 
state  your  head  was  in  ?  A  splitting  as  if  it  would  go  asunder. 
You  felt  that  you  would  give  half  of  all  you  were  worth,  for  a 
drink  of  water.  Your  tongue  was  dry  and  parched,  and  a 
coarse  fur  on  it.  How  you  got  up  in  the  morning  and  did  not 
know  what  to  do  with  yourself  for  the  whole  day,  going  about 
here  and  there,  and  afraid  to  eat,  your  stomach  being  so  sick , 
afraid  to  lie  down,  and  not  able  to  remain  up  or  go  to  work; 
moaning  and  shaking,  and  not  able  to  get  over  the  headache  of 
the  preceding  night.  That  was  the  first  time,  and  you  made 
vows  it  should  be  the  last.  Next  day  a  friend  came  along  and 
said:  "  Let  us  go  out  and  take  a  glass  of  toddy !"  He  wants 
you  to  take  medicine.  I  remember  once  I  heard  of  a  man  in 
this  particular  state,  and  when  he  saw  brandy  and  water  before 
him,  he  said:  "No,  sir;  I  would  rather  take  Epsom  salts." 
And  why  ?  Because  the  habit  is  not  yet  formed  ;  the  habit  is 
not  yet  confirmed.  But  go  on,  my  friend.  Don't  mind  that. 
When  that  headache  and  that  first  sickness  goes  away,  go  on, 
and  after  a  while,  when  you  have  learned  to  drink,  the  head- 
ache does  not  trouble  you  any  more  ;  you  get  used  to  it ;  the 
poison  assimilates  to  the  system ;  but  the  habit  is  come,  the 
physical  weakness  is  gone,  and  the  habit  of  sin  is  come.  Now, 
I  would  like  to  see  you,  if  you  were  drunk  yesterday  evening, 
to  be  able  to  resist  "  taking  your  morning."  You  could  not  do 
it !  I  have  seen  a  man — I  was  at  his  bedside — and  the  doctor  was 
there,  after  taking  him  over  six  long  days  of  delirium  tremens, 
and  the  doctor  said  to  him :  "  As  sure  as  God  created  you,  if 


90  The  Catholic  Church 

you  take  brandy  or  whiskey  for  the  next  week  you  will  be  a 
dead  man  !  it  will  kill  you !"  I  was  present.  I  was  trying  to 
see  if  the  poor  fellow  would  go  to  confession.  There  was  the 
bottle  of  brandy  ;  it  stood  near  him  on  the  table  ;  for  they  had 
had  to  give  him  brandy.  And  while  the  doctor  was  yet  speak- 
ing to  him,  I  saw  his  eyes  fastened  on  it,  and  the  hand  creeping 
up  towards  it ;  and  if  ever  you  saw  a  hungry  horse  or  mule 
looking  at  oats,  it  was  he,  when,  with  his  eyes  devouring  the 
bottle,  he  reached  out,  clutched  it,  and  put  it  to  his  head,  after 
hearing  that,  as  surely  as  God  made  him,  so  surely  would  he 
die  if  he  drank  of  it !  He  could  not  help  it.  Where,  then, 
was  that  man's  freedom  ?  It  had  perished  in  the  habit  of  sin. 
Look  at  Holofernes,  as  we  read  of  him  in  Scripture — the  pro- 
fane, the  impure  man  !  What  does  the  Scripture  say  of  him  ? 
That  when  Judith  came  into  his  tent,  the  moment  he  looked 
upon  «her,  the  moment  he  cast  his  eyes  upon  the  woman,  he 
loved  her.  He  could  not  help  it.  His  senses  had  enslaved 
him.  His  will !  He  had  no  will.  Speak  to  me  of  the  freedom 
of  the  will  of  a  thirsty  animal  going  to  the  water  to  drink,  and 
I  believe  it.  Speak  to  me  of  the  freedom  of  will  of  a  raging  lion, 
hungering  for  days,  and  seeing  food  and  leaving  it,  and  I  will  be- 
lieve in  it  as  soon  as  I  believe  in  the  freedom  of  the  will  of  the 
man  who  has  enslaved  himself  in  the  habit  of  sin  !  Therefore, 
Almighty  God  intends  either  that  we  should  be  free  from  sin, 
altogether,  keeping  down  the  habit  of  all  those  passions,  or,  if 
they,  from  time  to  time,  rise  up,  taking  us  unawares,  taking  us 
off  our  feet,  not  to  yield  to  them,  but  to  chain  them  down 
again,  and  not,  by  indulgence,  to  make  them  grow  into  habits. 
Now,  the  essence  of  freedom  in  the  will  of  man  lies  not  in  the 
restraint  of  legitimate  authority,  but  in  the  freedom  from  all 
care,  and  from  those  powers  and  influences  that  neither  God, 
nor  man,  nor  society  intended  should  influence  or  govern  his 
will.  Here  I  come  home  again  to  the  subject  of  my  lecture. 
Now,  I  invite  you  again  to  consider  where  shall  we  find  the 
means  of  emancipating  our  will  from  these  passions  and  other 
bad  influences.  Where  shall  we  find  the  means?  Will  knowl- 
edge do  it?  No.  Will  faith  do  it  ?  No.  It  is  a  strange  thing 
to  say,  but  knowledge,  no  matter  how  extensive,  no  matter 
how  profound,  gives  no  command  over  the  passions  ;  no  intel- 
lectual  motives  influence   them.     "Were   it   for   me,"  says  a 


The  Mother  of  Liberty.  91 

great  orator  of  the  present  day,  Dr.  Wilberforce,  in  his  "  Earn- 
est Cry  for  a  Reformation  ;"  "  when  you  can  moor  a  vessel 
with  a  thread  of  silk,  then  you  may  hope  to  elevate  this  human 
knowledge,  and,  by  human  reason,  to  tie  down  and  restrain 
those  giants — the  passions  and  the  pride  of  man."  I  know  as 
much  of  the  law  of  God  as  any  amongst  you — more,  probably, 
than  many — for  we  are  to  teach.  Does  my  knowledge  save  mf 
from  sin  ?  Will  that  knowledge  keep  me  in  the  observance  ol 
the  sacred  vows  I  took  at  the  altar  of  God  ?  Is  it  to  that 
knowledge  that  I  look  for  the  power  and  strength  within  me  to 
keep  every,  sinful  passion  down  in  sacerdotal  purity — every 
grovelling  desire  down  in  monastic  poverty — every  sin — every 
feeling  of  pride  down,  in  religious  obedience?  Is  it  to  my 
knowledge  I  look  for  that  power  ?  No !  I  might  know  as 
much  as  St.  Augustine  and  yet  be  imperfect.  I  might  be  a 
Pilate  in  atrocity  and  yet  as  proud  a  man  !  There  is  another 
question  involving  the  great  necessity  of  keeping  down  these 
passions.  I  would  like  to  know  where,  in  history,  you  could 
find  a  single  evidence  of  knowledge  restraining  the  passions  of 
man,  and  purifying  him  ?  No  ;  the  grace  of  God  is  necessary 
— the  grace  of  God  coming  through  fixed  specific  channels  to 
the  soul.  The  actual  participation  of  the  holiness  and  the 
infinite  sanctity  of  Christ  is  necessary.  Where  is  that  to  be 
found  that  will  save  the  young  from  sin,  and  save  the  sinner 
from  the  slavery  of  the  habit  of  sin  ?  Where  is  that  to  be  found 
which  will  either  tie  down  the  passions  altogether,  or,  if  they 
occasionally  rise  up,  put  them  down  again  and  not  allow  them 
to  grow  into  the  gigantic  tyrannical  strength  of  habit  ?  Where, 
but  in  the  Catholic  Church?  Take,  for  example,  the  Sacrament 
of  Penance.  These  children  are  taught,  with  the  opening  of 
reason,  their  duty  to  God.  You  may  say  the  Church  is  very 
unreasonable  because,  to-day,  she  tells  you  that  she  will  not 
allow  these  children  to  go  to  your  common-schools,  or  to  any 
other  schools  where  they  are  not  taught  of  God — where  they 
are  not  taught  the  holiness  of  God,  the  things  of  God,  the 
influence  of  God,  mixed  up  with  every  addition  of  knowledge 
that  comes  to  their  minds.  You  may  say  the  Church  is  unrea- 
sonable in  that.  No  !  because  she  tries  to  keep  them  from  sin  ! 
She  tries  to  give  them  the  strength  that  will  bind  these  passions 
d^wn,  so  as  to  make  moral  men,  truthful  men,  pure-minded 


92  The  Catholic  Church 

men  of  them — and  to  give  them  complete  victory,  if  possible, 
over  these  passions.  But  if,  as  age  comes  on,  as  temptations 
come  on,  if  the  Catholic  man  goes  and  gets  drunk — if  the 
Catholic  man  falls  into  any  sin,  this  or  that  one,  at  once  the 
Church  comes  before  him,  and  at  the  moment  he  crosses  the 
threshold  of  the  sanctuary,  and  his  eyes  fall  upon  the  confes- 
sional, that  moment  he  is  reminded  of  the  admonition,  "  Come 
to  me !  come  to  me  !  and  wash  your  soul  in  the  blood  of  the 
Lamb !  Come  and  tell  your  sin  !"  The  very  consciousness  of 
the  knowledge  of  having  to  confess  that  sin ;  the  humiliation 
of  being  obliged  to  tell  it  in  all  its  details — to  tell  it  with  so 
much  self-accusation,  and  sense  of  self-degradation  for  having 
committed  it — is,  in  itself,  a  strong  check  to  prevent  it,  and  a 
strong,  powerful  influence,  even  humanly  speaking,  against 
again  falling  into  it,  or  repeating  it.  As  the  confessional  saves 
from  the  tyranny  of  the  passions,  and,  above  all,  breaks  up  the 
means,  and  does  not  allow  the  habit  of  sin  to  become  a  second 
nature  in  the  life  of  man,  what  is  the  consequence?  The 
Catholic  man,  if  he  only  observes  his  religion,  if  he  only  exer- 
cises himself  in  its  duties,  if  he  only  goes  to  confession,  if  he 
only  partakes  in  its  sacraments  and  uses  them ;  the  Catholic 
man  is  free  in  his  will  by  Divine  grace  as  he  is  free  in  his  intelli- 
gence by  love.  Knowledge  of  the  truth  is  freedom  of  the  in- 
tellect— freedom  from  every  agency,  from  every  power  that 
might  control  the  freedom  of  the  will — and  that  is  effected  by 
Divine  grace.  So  far,  we  have  seen  that  Almighty  God  has  re- 
produced in  the  Church  the  elements  of  true  freedom.  I  do 
not  say  that  the  Catholic  Church  was  the  "  mother  "  of  human 
freedom.  I  said  she  was  "the  foster-mother;"  for,  to  use  a 
familiar  phrase,  we  are  literally  and  truly  put  out,  as  it  were,  by 
the  Church.  The  freedom  which  we  possess  came  to  us,  not 
from  the  Church,  but  from  God.  He  came  down  from  heaven, 
after  man  had  been  four  thousand  years  in  sin — after  man  had 
lost  his  noble  inheritance  of  knowledge,  of  light,  of  freedom, 
and  power  and  self-restraint.  He  came  in  the  darkness  ;  and 
he  gave  the  light.  He  came  in  slavery ;  and  he  gave  freedom. 
Having  thus  restored  in  man  what  he  lost  in  Adam,  He  then, 
as  He  Himself  tells  us,  in  the  parable  of  the  good  Samaritan, 
gave  us  to  the  Church,  and  said :  "Take  care  of  this  race  ;  pre- 
serve them  in  this  light  of  knowledge  and  freedom  of  truth. 


The  Mother  of  Liberty.  93 

Preserve  them  till  I  come  back  again,  and  I  will  pay  thee  well 
for  thy  care  !"  Now,  my  friends,  if  there  were  one  here  to- 
night who  is  not  a  Catholic,  he  might  smile  in  his  own  soul  and 
say :  "  This  friar  is  a  very  cunning  fellow.  He  dresses  up 
things  plausibly  enough  so  long  as  he  is  arguing  in  the  clouds 
about  freedom,  and  the  elements  of  freedom,  and  the  soil  of 
freedom.  Oh,  he  is  quite  at  home  there  !  Ah,  but  when  he 
comes  down  from  the  clouds  to  find  how  this  Church,  this  terri- 
ble Church,  this  enslaving  Church,  has  dealt  with  society,  then  let 
him  look  out !     Then  let  us  hear  what  he  has  to  say  for  himself!" 

Again,  what  are  those  charges  that  are  laid  against  the 
Catholic  Church  ?  The  first  charge  alleged  against  her  is  that 
she  does  not  allow  people  to  read  everything  that  is  published. 
It  is  quite  true.  If  the  Church  had  her  will,  there  are  a  great 
many  books,  that  are  considered  now  by  many  people  very  nice 
reading,  that  would  all  be  put  in  the  fire.  I  acknowledge  that ; 
I  admit  it.  Tell  me,  my  friends — and  are  there  not  a  great 
many  fathers  of  families  among  you  ? — if  one  of  you  found 
with  his  little  boy  some  blackguard  book,  some  filthy,  vile,  im- 
moral book,  would  you  let  your  child  read  it  ?  Would  you  con- 
sider that  you  were  enslaving  his  mind  by  taking  that  book  from 
him  and  putting  it  in  the  fire  before  his  face?  If  you  found 
one  of  your  sons  reading  some  very  beautiful  passage  of  Vol- 
taire, in  which  he  makes  a  laughing-stock  of  faith,  and  tries  to 
raise  a  laugh  against  Christ  on  the  cross,  would  you  consider 
you  were  doing  badly  for  your  child — would  you  consider  your- 
self enslaving  him — by  taking  that  book  from  him  and  putting 
it  in  the  fire? 

Now,  this  is  what  the  Catholic  Church  does.  She  declares 
that  people  have  no  right  to  read  that  which  is  against  faith 
and  morals ;  that  which  is  against  the  truth  of  Christ — that 
which  is  against  the  divinity  of  Christ — that  in  which  the 
■?  pride  of  the  unregenerated  mind  of  man  rises  up  and  says  : 
"I  will  not  believe!"  And,  not  content  with  this,  he  writes 
a  book,  and  tries  to  make  everybody  believe  and  say  the 
same  thing.  The  Church  says :  "  Don't  read  it."  There  are 
some  whom  she  allows  to  read  it.  She  lets  me  read  it.  She 
lets  my  fellow-priests  read  it.  Sometimes  she  even  obliges  us 
to  read  it.  Why?  Because  she  knows  we  have  knowledge 
enough  to  see  the  falsity  of  it,  and  she  allows  us  to  read  it  that 


94  The  Catholic  Church 

we  may  refute  it.  She  does  not  allow  you  to  read  it.  And 
why?  I  do  not  care  to  flatter  you,  my  friends.  Nothing  is 
more  commonly  used  to  lead  people  astray  than  a  plausible  lie. 
I  declare  to  you  that  although  I  think  "  the  truth  is  great  and 
must  prevail,"  that  if  I  had  my  choice  given  to  me,  and  I  could 
do  it  without  sin — if  it  were  given  to  me  to  come  out  and  try  to 
enforce  the  truth,  or  to  make  you  believe  a  lie — I  really  believe 
I  would  be  able  sooner  to  do  the  second ;  it  is  so  much  easier 
for  us  to  flatter — especially  with  a  lie  to  flatter  your  pride — to 
tell  you  you  are  the  finest  fellows  in  the  world — to  tell  you  you 
must  not  be  governed  by  a  certain  class — that  you  must  not  be 
paying  taxes — that  you  have  no  right  to  support  an  army  and 
navy — that  you  have  no  right  to  pay  a  class  of  men  to  govern 
you — and  thus  they  go  on,  playing  into  your  hands,  your  love 
of  money  and  your  love  of  yourself.  There  is  no  lie  among  the 
whole  catalogue  of  lies  that,  if  I  were  like  them,  I  would  not 
tell  you — and  I  could  make  you  believe  it.  The  Church  says 
there  is,  in  a  certain  book,  an  immoral  lesson  or  a  lie,  and  I  will 
not  allow  my  children  to  read  it.  There  are  books  published, 
and  I  have  seen  them  in  the  hands  of  Protestant  boys  and  girls, 
and  the  very  Pope  of  Rome  has  not  leave  to  read  them.  They 
are  books  that  contain  direct  appeals  to  immorality,  direct  ap- 
peals to  the  passions — books  against  both  faith  and  morals,  that 
the  Church  does  not  allow  to  be  read  by  any  one.  But  is  this 
slavery?  But  the  argument  against  Catholicity  is  that  the  men 
who  make  scientific  discoveries — the  men  who  said  that  the  world 
was  round,  for  instance — men  who  said  that  the  world  was 
round,  when  it  was  generally  believed  to  be  a  great  flat  plain, 
were  put  in  prison.  There  is  one  answer  to  that :  there  is  not 
a  single  instance  in  history  of  the  Church  joining  issue  with  any 
minister  on  any  purely  scientific  subject,  and  persecuting  him 
for  it.  If  there  was  not  any  question  of  faith  or  morals  in- 
volved, she  bid  him  "  God  speed  !"  and  told  him  to  go  on  with 
his  discoveries  if  there  was  anything  useful  in  them,  and  noth- 
ing hostile  to  religion  in  them.  I  will  give  you  an  instance : 
In  the  sixth  century  there  was  an  Irish  saint  who  was  called 
Virgilius — (in  his  own  country  his  name  was  Feargil) — and  this 
man  was  a  great  Culdee  monk,  and  a  great  scholar.  The  result 
of  his  speculations  was  that  he  became  satisfied  in  his  own  mind 
that  this  world  was  a  globe — round — as  it  is — and  that  there 


The  Mother  of  Liberty,  95 

must,  therefore,  be  an  antipodes — one  on  this  side  and  ose  on 
the  other  side,  and  that  there  must  be  seas  between  one  land 
and  another.  He  announced  this,  and  it  came  among  the  scien- 
tific men  of  the  day,  and  fell  amongst  them,  really  and  truly, 
as  if  a  bomb-shell  had  burst  at  their  feet.  The  scholars  of 
the  day,  the  universities  of  the  day,  appealed  to  Rome  against 
him  for  having  pronounced  so  fearful  a  theory ;  they  said  it  was 
heresy.  What  did  the  pope  do  ?  Remember,  you  can  consult 
the  authorities  for  yourselves.  I  can  give  you  chapter  and  verse 
if  you  want  them.  What  did  that  pope  do?  He  summoned 
this  man  to  Rome.  He  said,  "  You  are  charged  with  a  strange 
doctrine — with  saying  that  the  world  is  a  sphere — a  globe.  Tell 
us  all  about  it !"  He  did  so.  What  answer  did  Feargil  get  ?  The 
pope  took  him  by  the  hand  :  "  My  dear  friend,"  he  said,  "  go  on 
with  your  astronomical  discoveries," — and  he  made  him  Arch- 
bishop of  Salzburg,  and  sent  him  home  with  a  mitre  on  his 
head.  This  is  how  the  Catholic  Church  dealt  with  intellectual 
liberty  when  that  intellectual  liberty  did  not  claim  for  itself  any- 
thing bad,  and  was  void  of  anything  that  interfered  with  or  was 
opposed  to  Christian  faith  or  morals.  Do  you  wish  to  make  us 
out  slaves  because  we  ought  not  to  get  a  knowledge  of  evil? 
One  of  the  theories  of  the  day  is  that  it  is  better  to  let  little 
boys  and  girls  read  everything,  good  and  bad  ;  to  know  every- 
thing. Is  it  better?  Do  you  think  you  know  better  than  Al- 
mighty God  ?  There  was  one  tree  in  the  garden  of  Eden,  and 
Almighty  God  gave  a  commandment  to  Adam  and  Eve,  that  they 
should  neither  taste  of  it  nor  touch  it.  What  tree  was  it  ?  It 
was  the  "  tree  of  knowledge  of  good  and  evil."  Did  Almighty 
God  intend  to  exclude  from  Adam  the  knowledge  of  good  ? 
No  ;  but  He  intended  to  exclude  from  him  the  fatal  knowledge 
of  evil.  A  prohibition  against  reading  a  very  bad  book  was  the 
first  and  only  prohibition  that  Almighty  God  gave  to  the  first 
man.  "  Don't  touch  that  tree,"  said  He,  "  because  if  you  do 
you  will  come  to  the  knowledge  of  that  which  is  evil."  "  When 
ignorance  is  bliss  'tis  folly  to  be  wise."     So  says  Pope. 

Now,  my  friends,  who  are  they  that  make  this  charge  against 
the  Catholic  Church,  that  she  enslaves  her  children  ?  Who  are 
they  that  tell  us  that  the  historical  mother  of  all  the  great  uni- 
versities in  the  old  world  is  afraid  of  knowledge?  Who  are 
they  who  tell  us  that  the  Church,  whose  monks,  in  their  cloisters, 


g/S  The  Catholic  Church 

preserved  art  and  science  for  a  thousand  years — preserved  all 
the  ancient  relics  that  we  have  of  ecclesiastical  learning,  and  of 
the  learning  of  Greece  and  Rome — who  are  they  who  tell  ur 
that  the  Church  that  set  her  monks,  her  alchemists,  and  stu- 
dents experimentalizing  in  their  cloisters  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
until  most  of  what  are  called  the  modern  discoveries  were  made 
or  anticipated  by  them — who  are  they  who  tells  us  that  the 
Church  is  the  enemy  of  light  and  knowledge  and  of  freedom  ? 
Who  are  they  ?  They  are  the  Freemasons  of  the  day  !  Free- 
masons. 

Now,  you  will  allow  me,  if  you  please,  to  retort  the  assertion 
on  my  friends,  the  Masons— Mazzini  and  Garibaldi  and  Bis- 
marck— for  all  these  are  Freemasons.  They  all  say,  "  Oh,  let 
us  wash  our  hands  clean  of  this  old  institution — the  Catholic 
Church.  She  would  make  slaves  of  us  all.  We  must  give  the 
people  freedom ;  we  must  give  them  liberty."  And  then  they 
lay  on  taxation.  Then  they  tell  every  citizen  in  the  land  that 
he  must  lay  aside  his  spade  and  become  a  soldier.  They  tell 
every  man,  eighteen  years  of  age,  that  he  is  to  fight  for  freedom  , 
and  they  thrust  him  into  the  army.  Call  you  this  freedom  i 
Yet  this  is  what  they  give  for  the  liberty  of  the  Church  !  Are 
they  free  themselves,  these  freemasons  ?  I  will  give  you  one 
answer — and  one  is  as  good  as  a  thousand.  Last  December 
twelvemonth,  when  I  was  in  the  city  of  Dublin,  a  man  came  to 
me.  He  had  attended  a  series  of  sermons  I  was  preaching  in 
our  church  there.  He  was  an  intellectual,  a  well-educated  man. 
He  came  to  me,  and  said,  "  I  ought  to  be  a  Catholic ;  but  the 
fact  of  it  is,  I  have  been  so  long  away  from  the  sacraments  and 
everything  religious,  that  I  can  scarcely  say  I  am,  even  in  name, 
a  Catholic.  But  now,"  he  says,  "  I  feel  and  I  know  that  I 
must  do  something  to  save  my  soul."  Well,  I  took  him,  and 
instructed  him  in  the  holy  sacraments,  gave  him  the  holy  com- 
munion, and  sent  him  away.  He  said  that  he  had  never,  for 
years  upon  years,  known  such  happiness,  and  he  went  on  his 
way.  That  man  received  confirmation,  and  was  constant  in  his 
duty  from  December  until  the  month  of  April.  Then  I  waited 
for  him,  but,  instead  of  his  coming,  he  wrote  a  letter  to  me. 
"  My  Rev.  friend,"  he  said,  "  you  will,  no  doubt,  be  disappointed 
to  find  I  am  not  coming  to  you  on  Saturday.  The  fact  of  it  is, 
I  cannot  come.     I  find  that  I  cannot  shake  off  Freemasonry.     I 


The  Mother  of  Liberty.  qj 

have  got  several  notices  from  my  Masonic  brethren  that  I  must 
either  adhere  to  them  or  give  up  my  religion.  My  religion  has 
brought  me  more  happiness  than  I  ever  experienced  in  my  life, 
and  it  is  with  bitter  regret  I  tell  you,  that  my  business  is  falling 
off;  that  they  are  turning  away  my  customers  from  me — and 
they  tell  me  they  will  bring  me  to  a  beggar's  grave — a  wretched 
end  ;  and  they  can  and  will  do  it.  Therefore,  I  hope  you  will 
not  forget  me ;  but  I  must  give  up  the  happiness  I  have  had  !" 
Was  that  man  free,  I  ask  you?  Who  are  the  men  who  turn 
round  and  tell  me,  "  I  am  not  free?" — who  tell  me,  "  I  am  not 
free,"  because,  indeed,  I  am  not  fettered  like  a  slave,  bound  by 
every  filthy  passion  !  Who  are  they  that  tell  me,  "  I  am  not 
free,"  because  I  do  not,  of  my  own  free  will,  incline  myself  and 
pollute  my  mind  with  every  species  of  evil  and  impurity  ?  Who 
are  they  who  tell  me  I  am  not  free  because  in  the  Church  I  have 
to  believe  that  what  she  teaches  is  true  ?  But  I  tell  them  it  is 
true.  Who  are  the  gentlemen  who  told  my  friend  that,  at  the 
peril  of  his  life,  he  must  return  to  them,  and  give  up  his  religion  ? 
These  are  the  men  who  turn  round,  now-a-days,  and  tell  us  that 
in  the  Catholic  Church  a  man  is  not  free  !  But  tMs  is  the 
Church  that  has  brought  me  from  the  slavery  of  sin  into  the 
freedom  of  God,  and  the  glorious  liberty  of  an  heir  of  heaven. 
As  long  as  you  pursue  any  scientific  research,  as  long  as  you 
extend  your  mind  in  any  legitimate,  healthy,  moral  course  of 
literature,  or  in  any  intellectual  pursuit,  you  have  the  blessing 
and  encouragement  of  the  Church  upon  you.  Don't  mind  the 
world  if  it  call  you  a  slave.  If  you  come  to  a  certain  point,  if 
you  read  certain  books,  the  Church  says  you  must  become  either 
an  impure  man  or  an  infidel.  Don't  read  them,  in  God's  name ! 
It  is  not  slavery  for  the  intellect  to  repudiate  a  lie.  It  is  not 
slavery  for  the  will  to  reject  that  which,  if  once  accepted,  asserts 
the  dominion  of  the  slavery  of  sin  and  of  habit  over  the  souls  of 
men.  This  do  I  say  with  truth,  that  our  mother,  the  Church,  in 
the  principles  which  our  Lord  established,  in  her  daily  sacerdotal 
exercises,  is  the  foster-mother  of  human  freedom.  It  is  a  his- 
torical and  a  remarkable  fact,  that  the  kings  of  Europe — the 
King  of  Spain,  the  Emperor  of  Germany,  the  King  of  England, 
the  King  of  France — exercised  the  most  absolute  and  irre- 
sponsible power  precisely  at  the  time  when  the  Catholic  Church 
was  weakened   in    her   influence   over  them  by  the  heresy  of 

7 


98  The  Catholic  Church 

Martin  Luther.  It  is  most  remarkable  that  so  absolute  in  Eng 
land  was  Henry  the  Eighth  (and  never  was  there  a  king  whose 
absolute  manner  of  governing  and  whose  conduct  recalls  more 
the  days  of  the  Grand  Turk)  that  he  married  a  woman  to-day, 
he  killed  her  to-morrow,  and  who  was  to  call  him  to  account  ? 
So  absolute  a  king  could  not  have  done  this  as  a  Catholic,  and 
he  threw  aside  his  allegiance.  If  a  Catholic  king  had  done  these 
things — if  Henry's  father  had  done  them — if  any  one  of  Henry's 
Catholic  predecessors  had  done  it,  his  excommunication  would 
have  come  from  Rome.  He  would  have  been  afraid  of  his  life 
to  do  it.  He  would  have  been  afraid  of  the  pope.  What  was 
this  but  securing  the  people's  liberty?  Thus  do  we  see,  that  so 
long  as  the  Catholic  religion  had  power  to  exercise,  and  exer- 
cised that  power,  she  exercised  that  power  to  coerce  kings  into 
justice,  into  respect  for  their  subjects,  and  for  law,  for  property, 
and  for  life.  This  is  a  historical  fact,  that  the  Tudors  assumed 
an  absolute  sovereignty  as  soon  as  they  shook  off  the  pope,  and 
declared  to  the  people  that  they  were  the  lords  and  rulers  of  the 
consciences,  as  well  as  of  the  civil  obedience  of  men.  We  also 
know  that  Gustavus,  the  Protestant  King  of  Sweden,  assumed 
absolute  power.  We  also  know  that  that  power  grew  into  iron 
fetters  under  Charles  the  Fifth,  who,  though  not  a  Protestant 
himself,  but  a  good  Catholic,  yet  governed  a  people  who  were 
divided  in  their  principles  of  allegiance,  and  he  forsook  the 
world  for  the  Church.  We  can  bring  home  history  to  prove 
that  the  weakening  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  her  temporal 
power  over  society  has  been  the  cause  of  the  assumption  of 
more  power,  more  absolute  dominion,  and  more  tyrannical  ex- 
ercise of  that  dominion  on  the  part  of  every  ruler  in  Europe — 
and,  therefore,  I  say  that,  historically,  as  well  as  in  principle, 
the  Catholic  Church  is  the  foster-mother  of  human  liberty. 
And  now,  my  friends,  you  will  be  able,  by  word  of  mouth,  to 
answer  all  those  who  call  you  slaves  because  you  are  Catholics. 
You  may  as  well  call  a  man  a  slave  because  he  obeys  his  father. 
You  may  as  well  say  the  child  is  a  slave  because  there  are  cer- 
tain laws  and  rules  that  govern  him.  You  may  as  well  say  that 
the  citizen  is  a  slave,  because  he  acknowledges  the  power  of 
the  State  to  legislate  for  him,  and  he  bows  to  the  power  of  that 
legislation. 


"THE    CHURCH,   THE    MOTHER 
AND  INSPIRATION  OF  ART." 


[Pronounced   on  Sunday  evening,  March  ioth,  1872,  on  the  occasion  of  the  com 

fletion  of  the  Dominican  Church  of  St.  Vincent  Ferrer,  in   Lexington  Avenue,  New 
'ork,  of  which  Very  Rev.  M.  A.  Lilley,  O.  P.,  is  pastor.] 

CI  EARLY  beloved  brethren:  This  morning  I  told  you 
that  the  Holy  Catholic  Church  was  the  spouse  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  described  to  us  in  Scripture  as 
endowed  with  a  twofold  beauty,  namely,  interior,  of 
which  the  Psalmist  says,  "  All  the  beauty  of  the  king's  daughter 
is  from  within,"  and  exterior,  of  which  he  spoke  when  he  said, 
"The  queen  stood  at  His  right  hand,  in  golden  garb,  surrounded 
with  variety."  We  saw,  moreover,  this  morning,  that  the  inte- 
rior beauty  and  ineffable  loveliness  of  the  Church  consists,  above 
all,  in  this,  that  she  holds  enshrined  in  her  tabernacles  the  Lord, 
the  Redeemer  of  the  world,  as  the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary,  His 
mother,  held  Him  in  her  arms  in  Bethlehem,  as  the  cross  sup- 
ported Him  on  Mount  Calvary ;  that  she  possesses  His  ever- 
lasting truth  which  He  left  as  her  inheritance,  and  which  it  is 
her  destiny  not  only  to  hold,  but  to  proclaim  and  propagate  to 
all  the  nations ;  and,  finally,  that  she  holds  in  her  hands  the 
sacramental  power  and  agencies  by  which  souls  are  sanctified, 
purified,  and  saved.  In  these  three  features  we  saw  the  beauty 
of  the  Church  of  God  ;  in  these  three  we  beheld  how  the  mys- 
tery of  the  Incarnation  is  perpetuated  in  her ;  for  Christ  our  Lord 
did  not  forever  depart  from  earth,  but,  according  to  His  own 
word,  came  back  and  remained.  "  I  will  not  leave  you  orphans," 
he  said,  "but  I  will  come  to  you  again,  and  I  will  remain  with 
you  all  days,  even  to  the  consummation  of  the  world."  We  see 
in  these  three  wonderful  features  of  the  Church's  interior  beauty 


100  The  Church,  the  Mother 

how  she  is  truly  "The  city  of  the  Living  God,"  "  The  abode  of 
grace  and  holiness;  "  and,  therefore,  that  all  the  majesty,  all  the 
beauty,  all  the  material  grandeur  which  it  is  in  our  power  to  in- 
vest her  with,  it  becomes  our  duty  to  give  to  her,  that  she 
may  thus  appear  before  the  eyes  of  men  a  fitting  tabernacle  for 
our  Divine  Lord  Himself.  We  have  seen,  moreover,  how  the 
Church  of  God,  acting  upon  the  instincts  of  her  divinely  infused 
life  and  perpetual  charity,  has  always  endeavored  to  attest  and 
to  proclaim  her  faith  by  surrounding  the  object  of  that  faith, 
her  God,  with  all  that  earth  holds  as  most  precious  and  most 
dear.  I  then  told  you  (if  you  remember)  this  morning,  that  the 
subject  for  our  evening's  consideration  would  be  the  exterior 
beauty  of  the  Holy  Church  of  God — some  other  features  that 
belong  to  her,  distinct  from,  though  not  independent  of,  the 
three  great  singular  graces  of  God's  abiding  presence,  of  God's 
infallible  truth,  and  of  the  unceasing  stream  of  sacramental  grace 
that,  through  her,  flows  onward  ;  those  features  of  divine  external 
beauty  which  we  recognize  upon  the  face  of  our  Holy  Mother, 
the  Church.  Therefore,  dearly  beloved,  the  things  that  are  in- 
dicated by  the  exterior  garb  with  which  the  prophet  invested 
the  spouse  of  Christ :  "  The  queen  stood  on  thy  right  hand  in 
golden  garb,  surrounded  with  variety" — every  choicest  gem 
every  celestial  form  of  beauty  embroidered  upon  the  heavenly 
clothing  of  Heaven's  Queen,  every  rarest  jewel  let  into  the  set- 
ting of  that  golden  garment,  every  brightest  color  shining  forth 
upon  her — what  is  this  exterior  beauty  of  the  Church?  I  an- 
swer, that  it  consists  in  many  things — in  many  influences — in  the 
many  ways  in  which  she  has  acted  upon  society.  Ever  faithful 
to  the  cause  of  God  and  to  the  cause  of  humanity ;  ever  faithful 
to  the  heavenly  trust,  after  more  than  eighteen  hundred  years 
of  busy  life,  she  stands  to-day,  before  the  world  ;  and  no  man 
can  fix  upon  her  virgin  brow  the  shame  of  deception,  the  shame 
of  cruelty,  the  shame  of  the  denial  of  the  food  of  man's  real  life, 
the  Word  of  Truth.  No  man  can  put  upon  her  the  taint  of  dis- 
honor, of  a  compromise  with  hell  or  with  error,  or  with  any 
power  that  is  hostile  to  the  sovereignty  of  God  or  to  the  inter 
ssts  of  man.  Many,  indeed,  are  the  ways  in  which  the  Church 
<>f  God  has  operated  upon  society.  Of  these  many  ways  I  have 
selected  as  the  subject  for  our  evening's  illustration,  the  powei 
existing  in  the  Catholic  Church,  and  attested  by  undoubted  his- 


And  Inspiration  of  Art.  IOI 

torical  evidence — the  power  which  she  exercised  as  the  Mother 
and  inspirer  of  the  fine  arts.  And  here  let  me  first  of  all  say,  that, 
besides  the  useful  and  necessary  arts  which  occupy  men  in  their 
daily  life — the  arts  that  consist  in  maintaining  the  essential 
necessaries  and  in  providing  the  comforts  of  life — the  arts  that 
result  in  smoothing  away  all  the  difficulties  that  meet  us  in  oui 
path  in  life,  as  far  as  the  hand  of  man  can  materially  effect  this 
— besides  these  useful  and  necessary  arts — there  are  others  which 
are  not  necessary  for  our  existence,  nor,  perhaps,  even  for  our 
comfort — but  are  necessary  to  meet  the  spiritual  cravings  and 
aspirations  of  the  human  soul,  and  that  fling  a  grace  around 
ourselves.  There  are  arts  and  sciences  which  elevate  the  mind, 
soothe  the  heart,  and  captivate  the  understanding  and  the  im- 
agination of  man.  These  are  called  "  the  Fine  Arts."  For  in- 
stance :  it  is  not  necessary  for  your  life  or  mine,  that  our  eyes 
should  rest  with  pleasure  upon  some  beautiful  painting.  With- 
out that  we  could  live.  Without  that  we  could  have  all  that  is 
necessary  for  our  existence — for  our  daily  comfort.  Yet,  how 
refining,  how  invigorating,  how  pleasing  to  the  eye,  and  to  the 
soul  to  which  that  eye  speaks,  is  the  language  that  speaks  to  us 
silently,  yet  eloquently,  as  from  the  lips  of  a  friend,  from  works 
of  architecture,  or  sculpture,  or  painting.  It  is  not  necessary 
for  our  lives,  nor  for  the  comfort  of  our  lives,  if  you  will,  that 
our  ears  should  be  charmed  with  the  sweet  notes  of  melodious 
music ;  but  is  there  one  amongst  us  that  has  not,  at  some  time 
or  other,  felt  his  soul  within  him  soothed,  and  the  burden  of  his 
sorrow  lightened,  the  pleasure  he  enjoyed  increased  and  enhanced, 
when  music,  with  its  magic  spell,  fell  upon  his  ear  ?  It  is  not  neces- 
sary for  our  lives  that  our  eyes  should  be  charmed  with  the  sight 
of  some  grand,  majestic  building ;  but  who  amongst  us  is  there  who 
has  not  felt  the  emotion  of  sadness  swell  within  him  as  he  looked 
upon  the  green,  ivy-clad  ruin  of  some  ancient  church?  Who  is 
there  amongst  us  that  has  not,  at  some  time  or  other,  felt  the 
softening,  refining,  though  saddening  influences  that  creep  over 
him  when,  entering  within  some  time-honored  ruin  of  an  abbey, 
he  beheld  the  old  lance-shaped  windows,  through  which  came 
streams  of  sunshine  like  the  "light  of  other  days,"  and  beheld 
the  ancient  tracery  on  that  which  stood  behind  the  high  altar, 
and  had  once  been  filled  with  legends  of  angels  and  saints — but 
now  open  to  every  breeze  of  heaven — when  he  looked  upon  the 


102  TJie  Church,  tJu  Mother 

place  as  that  in  which  his  imagination  pictured  to  him  holy  bish- 
ops and  mitred  abbots  officiating  there,  and  offering  up  the  un- 
bloody sacrifice,  while  the  vaulted  arches  and  long  drawn  aisles 
resounded  with  the  loud  hosannas  of  the  long-lost  monastic  song? 
Who  is  there  amongst  us  who  has  not  felt,  at  times,  elevated,  im- 
pressed, aye,  filled  with  strong  feelings  of  delight,  as  his  eye 
roamed  steadily  and  gradually  up  to  the  apex  of  some  grand 
cathedral,  resting  upon  niches  of  saints  and  angels,  and  gliding 
from  beauty  to  beauty,  until,  at  length,  straining  his  vision,  he 
beheld,  high  amongst  the  clouds  of  heaven,  the  saving  sign  of 
the  Cross  of  Jesus  Christ,  upheld  in  triumph,  and  Ringing  its 
sacred  shadow  over  the  silent  graves.  It  is  thus  these  arts 
called  the  liberal,  or  the  Fine  Arts,  fill  a  great  place,  and  ac- 
complish a  great  work  in  the  designs  of  God,  and  in  the  history 
of  God's  Holy  Church. 

My  friends,  the  theme  which  I  have  propounded  to  you  con- 
tains two  grave  truths.  The  first  of  these  is  this :  I  claim  for 
the  Catholic  Church  that  she  is  the  mother  of  the  arts  ;  secondly, 
I  claim  for  her  the  glory  that  she  has  been  and  is  their  highest 
inspiration.  What  is  it  that  forms  the  peculiar  attraction — that 
creates  the  peculiar  influence  of  art  upon  the  soul  of  man, 
through  his  senses  ?  What  is  it  that  captivates  the  eye?  It  is 
the  ideal  that  speaks  to  him  through  art.  In  nature  there  are 
many  beautiful  things,  and  we  contemplate  them  with  joy,  with 
delight.  The  faint  blushes  of  the  morning,  as  the  rising  sun 
climbs  slowly  over  the  eastern  hills,  filling  the  valleys  with  rosy 
light,  and  gladdening  the  face  of  nature — all  this  is  grand,  all 
this  is  beautiful.  But  in  nature,  because  it  is  nature,  the  per- 
fect^ beautiful  is  rarely  or  never  found.  Some  one  thing  or 
other  is  wanting  that  would  lend  an  additional  feature  of  loveli- 
ness to  the  scene  which  we  contemplate,  or  to  the  theme,  the 
hearing  of  which  delights  us.  Now,  the  aim  of  the  Catholic  soul 
of  art  is  to  take  the  beautiful  wherever  it  is  found,  to  abstract  it 
from  all  that  might  deform  it,  or  to  add  all  that  might  be  want- 
ing to  its  perfect  beauty — to  add  to  it  every  feature  and  every 
element  that  can  fulfill  the  human  idea  of  perfect  loveliness,  and 
to  fling  over  all  the  still  higher  loveliness  which  is  caught  from 
heaven.  This  is  called  "  the  Ideal  "  in  art.  We  rarely  find  it 
in  nature.  We  seek  it  in  highest  art.  We  look  upon  a  picture, 
and  there  we  behold  portrayed  with  supreme  power  all  the  glory 


And  Inspiration  of  Art.  103 

of  the  light  that  the  sun  can  lend  from  heaven — all  the  glory 
of  material  beauty  chastened,  refined,  and  idealized  by  the  art- 
ist's inspiration,  breathing  purest  soul,  enforcing  some  high 
lesson,  and  persuading  by  the  spiritual  influence  which  pervades 
the  whole  work.  Amongst  the  ancient  nations — the  great 
fountains  of  the  ancient  civilization — Egypt,  Assyria,  Greece, 
and  finally,  Rome — during  the  four  thousand  years  that  went 
before  the  coming  of  the  Redeemer,  these  arts  and  sciences 
flourished.  We  have  still  the  remains  of  the  Coliseum,  for 
instance,  in  Rome,  combining  vastness  of  proportion  with  per- 
fect symmetry,  and  the  mind  is  oppressed  at  the  immensity  of 
size,  whilst  the  eye  is  charmed  with  the  beauty  of  proportion. 

But  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries — after  the  foundation  of 
the  Church  had  been  firmly  laid,  after  the  promulgation  of  the 
Christian  religion — when  the  Roman  Empire  had  bowed  down 
her  imperial  head  before  the  glory  of  the  Cross  of  Christ,  it  was 
in  the  designs  of  God  that  all  that  ancient  civilization,  all  these 
ancient  arts  and  sciences,  should  be  broken  up  and  perish. 
From  Egypt,  Syria,  and  the  far  East  they  came,  and  their  glory 
concentrated  itself  in  Greece — later,  and  most  of  all,  in  Rome. 
All  the  wealth  of  the  world  was  gathered  into  Rome.  All  the 
glory  of  earth  was  centralized  in  Rome.  Whatever  the  world 
knew  of  painting,  of  sculpture,  of  architecture,  of  music,  was 
found  in  Rome,  in  the  highest  perfection  to  which  the  ancient 
civilization  had  brought  it.  Then  came  the  moment  when  the 
Church  was  to  enter  upon  her  second  mission — that  of  creating 
a  new  world  and  a  new  civilization.  Then  came  the  moment 
when  Rome  and  its  ancient  empire  gravitated  to  a  climax  by 
its  three  hundred  years  of  religious  persecution  of  the  Church 
of  God,  and  her  crimes  were  about  to  be  expiated.  Then  came 
the  time  when  God's  designs  became  apparent.  Even  as  the 
storm-cloud  bursts  forth  and  sweeps  the  earth  in  its  resistless 
force,  so,  my  dear  friends,  in  these  centuries,  of  which  I  speak, 
from  the  fastnesses  of  the  North  came  forth  dreadful  hordes  of 
barbarians — men  without  civilization — men  without  religion — 
men  without  mercy — men  without  a  written  language — men 
without  a  history — men  without  a  single  refining  element  of 
faith  amongst  them  ;  and  down  they  came,  Goths  and  Visigoths, 
Huns  and  Vandals,  onward  sweeping  in  their  resistless  and 
almost  countless  thousands  of  warriors,  carrying  slavety  and 


104  The  Church,  the  Mother 

destruction  in  their  hands  ; — and  thus  they  swept  over  the 
Western  world.  Rome  went  down  before  them.  All  her  glory 
departed  ;  and  so  the  civilization  of  Greece  and  Rome  was  com- 
pletely destroyed.  Society  was  overthrown,  and  reduced  to  the 
first  chaotic  elements  of  its  being.  Every  art,  every  science, 
every  most  splendid  monument  of  the  ancient  world  was  des- 
troyed ;  and,  at  the  close  of  the  fifth  century,  the  work  of  the 
four  thousand  preceding  years  had  to  be  done  over  again. 
Mankind  was  reduced  to  its  primal  elements  of  barbarism. 
Languages  never  before  heard,  barbaric  voices,  were  lifted  up 
in  the  halls  of  the  ancient  palaces  of  Italy  and  in  the  forum  of 
Rome.  All  the  splendors  of  the  Roman  Empire  disappeared, 
and,  with  them,  almost  every  vestige  of  the  ancient  arts  and 
civilization  of  the  preceding  times.  No  power  of  earth  was 
able  to  withstand  the  hordes  of  Attila.  No  army  was  able  to 
make  front  against  them.  All  went  down  before  them,  save  and 
except  one — one  organization,  one  power  in  the  world — one 
power  founded  by  Christ  and  compacted  by  the  very  hand  of 
God — founded  upon  an  immovable  foundation  of  knowledge 
and  of  truth — one  power  which,  for  divine  purposes,  was  allowed 
a  respite  from  persecution  for  a  few  years,  in  order  that  she 
might  be  able  to  present  to  the  flood  of  barbarism  that  swept 
away  the  ancient  civilization,  a  compact  and  well-formed  body, 
able  to  react  upon  them, — and  that  power  was  the  Holy  Church 
of  God.  She  boldly  met  the  assault ;  she  stemmed  the  tide  ; 
she  embraced  and  absorbed  in  herself  nation  after  nation,  million 
after  million  of  those  rude  children  of  the  Northern  shores  and 
forests.  She  took  them,  rough  and  barbarous  as  they  were,  to 
her  bosom ;  and,  at  the  end  of  the  fifth  century,  the  Church  of 
God  began  her  exterior,  heroic  mission  of  civilizing  the  world, 
and  laying  the  foundations  of  modern  civilization  and  of  modern 
society.  So  it  went  on  until  the  day  when  the  capitol  of  Rome 
was  shrouded  in  flames,  and  the  ancient  monuments  of  her 
pride,  of  her  glory,  and  of  civilization,  were  ruined  and  fell,  and 
almost  every  vestige  of  the  ancient  arts  disappeared.  The 
Church,  on  the  one  hand,  addressed  herself,  first  and  most 
immediately,  to  the  Christianizing  of  these  Northern  nations. 
Therein  lay  her  divine  mission,  therein  lay  the  purpose  foi 
which  she  was  created — to  teach  them  the  truths  of  God. 
Whilst  she  did  this  she  carefully  gathered    together  all  that 


And  Inspiration  of  Art.  1 05 

remained  of  the  traditions  of  ancient  Pagan  science  and  art. 
Whilst  all  over  Europe  the  greater  part  of  the  nations  were 
engaged  in  the  war  between  Northern  barbarism  and  civiliza 
tion  and  the  land  was  one  great  battle-field,  overflowing  with 
blood,  the  Church  gathered  into  her  arms  all  that  she  could  lay 
her  hands  on,  of  ancient  literature,  of  ancient  science  and  art, 
and  retired  with  them  into  her  cloisters.  Everywhere,  over  the 
whole  face  of  Europe,  and  in  Africa  and  Asia — everywhere  the 
monk  was  the  one  man  of  learning — the  one  man  who  brought 
with  him,  into  his  cloister,  the  devotion  to  God  that  involved 
the  sacrifice  of  his  life — the  devotion  to  man  that  considers  a 
neighbor's  good,  and  makes  civilization  and  refinement  the  pur- 
pose and  study  of  his  life !  Where,  to-day,  would  be  the  litera- 
ture of  ancient  Greece  and  Rome,  if  the  Church  of  God,  the 
Catholic  Church,  had  not  gathered  their  remnants  into  her 
cloisters?  Where,  to-day,  would  be  (humanly  speaking)  the 
very  Scriptures  themselves,  if  these  monks  of  old  had  not  taken 
them,  and  made  the  transcribing  of  them,  and  the  multiplying 
copies  of  them,  the  business  of  their  lives?  And  so,  all  that  the 
world  has  of  science,  of  art, — all  that  the  world  has  of  tradition 
— of  music,  of  painting,  of  architecture — all  that  the  world  has 
of  the  arts  of  Greece  and  Rome,  was  treasured  up  for  a  thou- 
sand years  in  the  cloisters  of  the  Catholic  Church  ! 

And  now,  her  twofold  mission  began.  Whilst  her  preachers 
evangelized — whilst  they  followed  the  armies  of  the  Vandal  and 
the  Goth,  from  field  to  field,  and  back  to  their  fastnesses  of  the 
North — whilst  they  converted  those  rude  and  terrible  sons  of  the 
forest  into  meek,  pure-minded  Christians,  upon  the  one  hand, 
on  the  other,  the  Church  took  and  applied  all  the  arts,  all  the 
sciences,  all  the  human  agencies  that  she  had — and  they  were 
powerful — to  the  civilizing  and  refining  of  these  barbarous  men. 
Then  it  was  that  in  the  cloisters  there  sprang  up,  created  and 
fostered  by  the  Church  of  God,  the  fair  and  beautiful  arts  of 
painting,  music,  and  architecture.  I  say  "created"  in  the 
Church.  There  are  many  amongst  you  as  well  informed  as  I  am 
in  the  history  of  our  civilization,  and  I  ask  you  to  consider  that 
amongst  the  debris  of  the  ruin  of  ancient  Rome  and  of  ancient 
Greece,  although  we  possess  noble  monuments  of  the  ancient 
architecture,  we  have  but  the  faintest  tradition  of  their  music  or 
their  paintings — scarcely  anything.     I  have  visited   the   ruined 


106  Tht   Church,  the  Mother 

cities  of  Italy,  I  have  stood  within  the  walls  of  Ostium,  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Tiber,  when,  after  hundreds  of  years,  for  the  first 
time  the  earth  was  removed,  and  the  ancient  temples  were  re- 
vealed again.  The  painting  is  gone,  and  nothing  but  the  faint- 
est outline  remains.  Still  less  of  the  music  of  the  ancients  have 
we.  We  do  not  know  what  the  music  of  ancient  Greece  or  of 
ancient  Rome  was.  All  we  know  is,  that  among  the  ancient 
Greeks  there  was  a  dull  monotone,  or  chorus,  struck  into  an 
alternating  strain.  Of  their  sculpture  we  have  abundant  re- 
mains ;  and,  indeed,  on  this  it  may  be  said,  that  there  has  not 
been  any  modern  art  which  has  equalled,  scarcely  approached, 
the  perfection  of  the  ancient  Grecian  model.  But  the  three 
sciences  of  architecture,  painting,  and  music  have  all  sprung 
from  the  cloisters  of  the  Church.  What  is  the  source  of  all  great 
modern  song?  When  the  voice  of  the  singer  was  hushed  every- 
where else,  it  resounded  in  the  Gregorian  chant  that  pealed  in 
loud  hosannas  through  the  long-drawn  aisles  of  the  ancient  Cath- 
olic mediaeval  churches.  It  first  came  from  the  mind — it  came 
from  out  the  loving  heart  of  the  holy  pope,  Gregory,  himself  a 
religious,  and  consecrated  to  God  as  a  monk.  Whence  came 
the  organ,  the  prince,  the  king  of  all  instruments,  the  faithful 
type  of  Christianity— of  the  Christian  congregation — so  varied 
yet  so  harmonious  ;  made  up  of  a  multitude  of  pipes  and  stops, 
each  one  differing  from  the  other,  yet  all  blending  together  into 
one  solemn  harmony  of  praise,  just  as  you,  who  come  in  here 
before  this  altar,  each  one  full  of  his  own  motives  and  desires — 
the  young,  the  old — the  grave,  the  gay — rich  and  poor — each 
with  his  own  desire  and  experience  of  joy,  of  sorrow,  or  of  hope 
— yet,  before  this  altar,  and  within  these  walls,  do  you  blend 
into  one  united  and  harmonious  act  of  faith,  of  homage,  and  of 
praise  before  God.  Whence  came  the  king  of  instruments  to 
you — so  majestic  in  form,  so  grand  in  its  volume — so  symbolical 
of  the  worship  which  it  bears  aloft  upon  the  wings  of  song 
In  the  cloisters  of  the  Benedictine  monks  do  we  hear  it  for 
the  first  time.  When  the  tired  Crusader  came  home  from  his 
Eastern  wars,  there  did  he  sit  down  to  refresh  his  soul  with 
sacred  song.  There,  during  the  solemn  Mass  of  midnight,  or 
at  the  Church's  •office  at  matins,  whilst  he  heard  the  solemn, 
plaintive  chant  of  the  Church,  whilst  he  heard  the  low-blended 
notes  of  the  accompanying  organ,  skilfully  touched  by  the  Bene- 


And  Inspiration  of  Art.  107 

dictine  s  hand — would  his  rugged  heart  be  melted  into  sorrow 
and  the  humility  of  Christian  forgiveness.  And  thus  it  is  the 
most  spiritualizing  and  highest  of  all  the  arts  and  sciences — 
this  heaven-born  art  of  music.  Thus  did  the  Church  of  God 
make  her  divine  and  civilizing  appeal,  and  thus  her  holy  influ- 
ence was  brought  out,  during  those  stormy  and  terrible  times 
when  she  undertook  the  almost  impossible  task  of  humbling  the 
proud,  of  purifying  the  unchaste,  of  civilizing  the  terrible,  the 
fierce,  and  the  blood-stained  horde  of  barbarians  that  swept,  in 
their  resistless  millions,  over  the  Roman  empire. 

The  next  great  art  which  the  Church  cultivated  in  her  clois- 
ters, and  which,  in  truth,  was  created  by  her  as  it  exists  to-day, 
was  the  art  of  painting.  Recall  the  circumstances  of  the  time. 
Printing  was  not  yet  invented.  Yet  the  people  had  to  be  in- 
structed— and  not  only  to  be  instructed  but  influenced  ;  for  mere 
instruction  is  not  sufficient.  The  mere  appeal  to  the  power  of 
faith,  or  to  the  intellect  of  man,  is  not  sufficient.  Therefore 
did  the  Church  call  in  the  beautiful  art  of  painting ;  and  the 
holy,  consecrated  monk  in  his  cloister  developed  all  the  origin- 
ality of  his  genius  and  of  his  mind  to  reproduce  in  captivat- 
ing form — in  silent  but  eloquent  words,  the  mysteries  of  the 
Church — the  mysteries  which  the  Church  has  taught  from  her 
birth.  Then  did  the  mystery  of  the  Redemption,  the  Incarna- 
tion of  the  Son  of  God,  the  angels  coming  down  from  heaven 
to  salute  Mary — then  did  all  these  greet  the  eye  of  the  rude, 
unlettered  man,  and  tell  him,  in  language  more  eloquent  than 
words,  how  much  Almighty  God  in  heaven  loved  him.  But 
it  was  necessary  for  this  that  the  art  of  painting  should  be  ideal- 
ized to  its  very  highest  form.  It  was  necessary  to  the  painter's 
hand  to  fling  around  Mary's  head  a  combined  halo  of  virginity 
and  of  heavenly  maternity.  It  was  necessary  that  the  angelic 
form  that  saluted  her  should  have  the  transparency  of  heaven 
and  of  its  own  spiritual  nature,  floating,  as  it  were,  through  him, 
in  material  color.  It  was  necessary  that  the  atmosphere  that 
surrounded  her  should  be  as  that  cloudless  atmosphere  which  is 
breathed  before  the  throne  of  the  Most  High.  It  was  necessary 
that  the  man  who  looked  upon  this  should  be  lifted  up  from  the 
thoughts  of  earth  and  engaged  wholly  in  the  .contemplation  of 
objects  of  heaven.  Therefore,  glimpses  of  beauty  the  most 
transcendent,  aspirations  of  heaven,  lifting  up  the  soul  from  all 


108  The  Church,  the  Mot  Her 

earthliness — from  worldliness — were  necessary.  To  obtain  this 
the  monk  was  obliged  to  fast  and  pray  while  he  painted.  The 
monk  was  obliged  to  lift  up  his  own  thoughts,  his  own  imagina- 
tion, his  own  soul,  in  contemplation,  and  view,  as  it  were,  the 
scene  which  he  was  about  to  illustrate,  with  no  earthly  eye.  The 
Church  alone  could  do  this,  and  the  Church  did  it.  She  created 
the  art  of  painting.  There  was  no  tradition  in  the  pagan  world 
to  aid  him  ;  no  beauty — the  beauty  of  no  fair  forms  in  all  the 
fulness  of  their  majestic  symmetry  before  his  eye  to  inspire 
him.  He  must  look  altogether  to  heaven  for  his  inspiration. 
And  so  faithfully  did  he  look  up  to  heaven's  glories,  and  so  clear 
was  the  vision  that  the  painter- monk  received  of  the  beauties  he 
depicted  on  earth,  that  in  the  thirteenth  century  there  arose  in 
Florence  a  Dominican  monk,  a  member  of  our  order,  beatified 
by  his  virtues,  and  called  by  the  single  title  of  "  The  Angelic 
Painter."  He  illustrated  the  Holy  Trinity.  He  put  before  the 
eyes  of  the  people  all  the  great  mysteries  of  our  faith.  And  now, 
after  so  many  ages — after  six  hundred  years  have  passed  away, 
whenever  a  painter,  or  lover  of  art,  stands  before  one  of  those 
wonderful  angels  and  saints,  painted  by  the  hand  of  the  ancient 
monk,  now  in  heaven,  it  seems  to  him  as  if  the  very  angels  of 
God  had  descended  from  on  high  and  stood  before  the  painter, 
while  he  fixed  their  glory  in  colored  form,  as  they  appear  to  the 
eye  of  the  beholder.  It  seems  as  if  we  gazed  upon  the  blessed 
angelic  hosts,  and  as  if  Gabriel,  standing  before  Mary,  mingled 
the  joy  of  the  meeting  with  the  solemnity  of  the  message  which 
the  painter  represents  him  as  announcing.  It  seems  as  if  Mary 
is  seen  receiving  the  message  of  man's  redemption  from  the 
angel,  not  as  a  woman  of  earth,  but  as  if  she  was  the  very  per- 
sonification of  the  woman  that  the  inspired  Evangelist  at 
Patmos  saw,  "  clothed  with  the  sun,  and  the  moon  under  her 
feet,  and  on  her  head  a  crown  of  twelve  stars."  Michael  Angelo, 
the  greatest  of  painters,  gazed  in  wonder  at  the  angels  and 
saints  that  the  Dominican  monk  had  painted.  Astonished,  he 
knelt  down,  gave  thanks  to  God,  and  said,  "  The  man  that  could 
have  painted  these  must  have  seen  them  in  heaven  !" 

The  architecture  of  the  ancient  world,  of  Greece  and  of 
Rome,  remained.  It  was  inspired  by  a  Pagan  idea,  and  it  never 
rose  above  the  idea  that  inspired  it.  The  temples  of  Athens 
and  of  Rome  remain  in  all  their  shattered   glory,  and  in  all  the 


And  Inspiration  of  Art.  109 

chaste  beauty -of  their  proportions.  Very  remarkable  are  they 
as  architectural  studies  for  this  :  that  they  spread  themselves 
out,  and  covered  as  much  of  the  earth's  space  as  possible ;  that 
the  pillars  were  low  and  the  arches  low ;  and  everything  seemed 
to  cling  to  and  tend  towards  earth.  For  this  was  the  idea,  and 
the  highest  idea,  of  architecture,  that  ever  entered  into  the  mind 
of  the  greatest  of  the  men  of  ancient  civilization.  The  monk 
in  his  cloister,  designing  to  build  a  temple  and  a  house  for  the  liv- 
ing God,  looking  upon  the  models  of  ancient  Greece  and  Rome, 
saw  in  them  a  grovelling  and  an  earthly  architecture.  His  mind 
was  heavenward  in  aspiration.  His  thoughts,  his  affections, 
were  all  purified  by  the  life  which  he  led.  Out  of  that  upward 
tendency  of  mind  and  heart  sprang  the  creation  of  a  new  style 
of  Christian  architecture,  which  is  called  the  Gothic  ;  as  little  in 
it  of  earth  as  may  be — just  sufficient  to  serve  the  purpose  of  a 
superstructure.  The  idea  was  to  raise  it  as  high  towards  heaven 
as  possible — to  raise  a  monument  to  Almighty  God — a  monu- 
ment revealing  in  every  detail  of  its  architecture  the  divine 
idea,  and  the  upward  tendency  of  the  regenerated  heart  of  the 
Christian  man.  Now,  therefore,  let  every  arch  be  pointed  ; 
now,  therefore,  let  every  pillar  spring  up  as  loftily  as  a  spire ; 
now,  let  every  niche  be  filled  with  angels  and  saints — some  who 
were  tried  in  love — others  who  maintained  the  faith — teaching 
the  lesson  of  their  sanctity — now  pronouncing  judgment,  now 
proclaiming  mercy.  Now,  therefore,  let  the  high  tower  be  up- 
lifted on  which  swings  the  bell,  consecrated  by  the  blessing  of 
the  Church,  to  fling  out  upon  the  air  around,  which  trembles  as 
it  receives  its  message,  the  notes  of  Christian  joy  and  of  Chris- 
tian sorrow !  And  high  above  that  tower,  let  the  slender,  pointed 
spire  seek  the  clouds,  and  rear  up,  as  near  to  heaven  as  man  can 
go,  the  symbol  of  the  Cross  on  which  Christ  redeemed  mankind  ! 
The  people  require  instruction  ;  put  sermons  in  stones.  Let 
'  the  material  edifice  be  an  epic  of  faith  and  of  praise  to  God 
Let  everything  that  the  eye  sees  be  symbolical  of  the  divine. 

"  Shut  then  in  the  petals  of  the  flowers, 
Round  the  stems  of  all  the  lilies  twine, 
Hide  beneath  each  bird's  or  angel's  pinion, 
Some  wise  meaning  or  some  thought  divine, 
Place  in  stony  hands  thnt  pray  forever, 
Tender  words  of  peace,  and  strive  to  wind 
Round  the  leafy  scrolls  and  fretted  niches 
Some  true  loving  message  to  your  kind," 


no  The  Church,  the  Mother 

Such  is  the  Church's  idea  ;  and  such  is  the  architecture  of  which 
she  is  the  mother !  Thus  we  behold  the  glorious  churches  of  the 
middle  ages.  Thus  we  behold  them  in  those  ancient  and  quaint 
towns  of  Belgium  and  of  France.  We  behold  on  their  transepts, 
for  instance,  a  tracery  as  fine  as  if  it  were  wrought  and  embroid- 
ered by  a  woman's  hands,  with  a  strength  that  has  been  able  to 
defy  the  shocks  of  war  and  the  action  of  ages.  If  the  traveller 
seeks  the  sunny  plains  of  Italy,  he  climbs  the  snow-crowned,  soli- 
tary Alps,  and  there,  after  his  steep  and  rugged  ascent,  he  beholds 
on  one  side  the  valleys  of  Switzerland,  and  he  turns  to  the  land 
of  the  noonday  sun,  and  sees  before  him  the  fair  and  wide- 
spread plains  of  Lombardy.  The  great  rivers  flow  through 
these  plains  and  look  as  if  they  were  of  molten  silver.  The 
air  is  pure,  and  the  sky  is  the  sky  of  Italy.  Majestic  cities  dot 
the  plains  at  his  feet.  But  amongst  them  all,  as  the  sun  flings 
his  Italian  light  upon  the  scene — amongst  them  all,  he  beholds 
one  thing  that  dazzles  his  eyes  with  its  splendor.  There,  far 
away  in  the  plains,  within  the  gates  of  the  vast  city  of  Milan, 
he  sees  a  palace  of  white  marble  rising  up  from  the  earth ;  ten 
thousand  statues  of  saints  around  it ;  with  countless  turrets, 
and  a  spire  with  a  pinnacle  rising  towards  heaven,  as  if  in  a  riot 
of  Christian  joy.  The  sun  sparkles  upon  it  as  if  it  were  covered 
with  the  rime  of  a  hoar-frost,  or  as  if  it  were  made  of  molten 
silver.  Possibly  his  steps  are  drawn  thither,  and  it  pleases  him 
to  enter  the  city.  Never  before — never,  even  with  the  eye  of 
the  mind — had  the  traveller  seen  so  grand  an  idea  of  the  sacred 
humanity  of  Jesus  Christ !  Here  He  reigns  !  Who  can  deny 
the  historical  facts  which  I  have  narrated  ?  Who  can  deny  that 
if,  to-day,  our  ear  is  charmed  with  the  sound  of  music — our  eye 
delighted  with  the  contemplation  of  paintings — our  hearts  within 
us  lifted  up  at  the  sight  of  some  noble  monument  of  architec- 
ture— who  can  deny,  with  such  facts  before  him,  that  it  was  the 
Church  that  created  these — that  she  is  the  mother  of  these — 
and  that  she  brought  them  forth  from  out  the  chaos  and  the 
ruin  that  followed  the  destruction  of  the  pagan  civilization  ? 
But  whilst  she  was  their  mother,  she  was  also  their  highest  in- 
spiration. For,  remember,  that  the  zeal  in  art  may  be  taken 
from  earth,  or  drawn  from  heaven.  Art  may  aspire  to  neither 
more  nor  less  than  "  to  hold  the  mirror  up  to  nature."  The 
painter,  for  instance,  may  aspire  to  nothing  more  than  to  render 


And  Inspiration  of  Art.  Ill 

faithfully,  as  it  is  in  nature,  a  herd  of  cattle,  or  a  busy  scene  in 
the  town.  The  musician  may  aspire  to  nothing  more  than  the 
pleasure  which  his  music  will  give  to  the  sense  of  the  voluptu- 
ous in  man.  The  architect  may  aspire  to  nothing  more  than 
the  creation,  in  a  certain  space,  of  a  certain  symmetry  of  pro- 
portion, and  a  certain  usefulness  in  the  work  of  his  hands. 
They  may  "  hold  the  mirror  up  to  nature  ;"  but  this  is  not  a  per- 
fect idealisation  of  art.  The  true  ideal  holds  the  mirror  of  its 
representation  not  only  up  to  nature,  to  copy  that  nature  faith- 
fully, but — higher  still — to  God,  to  catch  one  ray  of  divine  in- 
spiration, one  ray  of  divine  light,  one  ray  of  heavenly  instruc- 
tion, and  to  fling  that  pure,  heavenly  light  over  the  earthly  pro- 
ductions of  his  art.  This  pious  inspiration  is  only  to  be  found 
in  the  Catholic  Church.  It  is  found  in  her  music — those  strains 
of  hers  which  we  call  the  "  Gregorian  chant," — which,  without 
producing  any  very  great  excitement  or  pleasure,  yet  fall  upon 
the  ear,  and  through  the  ear,  upon  the  soul,  with  a  calming, 
solemn  influence,  and  seem  to  speak  to  the  affections  in  the 
very  highest  language  of  worship.  Plaintively  do  they  fall — yes, 
plaintively — because  the  Church  of  God  has  not  yet  shone  over 
the  earth  in  the  fullness  of  her  glory — plaintively,  because  the 
object  of  her  worship  is  mainly  to  make  reparation  to  an  offend- 
ed God  for  the  negligence  of  the  sinner — plaintively,  because  the 
words  which  this  music  breathes  are  the  words  of  the  penitent 
and  the  contrite  of  heart — plaintively,  because,  perhaps,  my 
brethren,  the  highest  privilege  of  the  Christian  here  is  a  holy 
sadness,  according  to  the  words  of  Him  who  said  :  "  Blessed  are 
they  who  mourn  and  weep,  for  they  shall  be  comforted." 

In  the  lapse  of  years,  the  Church  again  brought  forth  anothei 
method  and  gave  us  another  school,  which  expresses  to-day 
the  pious  exultation,  the  riot  of  joy,  with  which,  on  Christmas 
day,  Palaestrina  sang  before  Pope  Marcellus,  in  Rome.  Who 
can  say — who  is  there  with  trained,  sympathetic  ear  who  hears 
them,  who  cannot  say — that  the  inspiration  which  is  in  them  is 
altogether  of  heaven — heavenly;  and  that  it  lifts  up  the  soul 
to  the  contemplation  of  heavenly  themes,  and  to  the  triumph 
of  Jesus  Christ.     The  highest  inspiration  came  through  faith. 

Let  us  turn  to  the  art  of  painting.  So  long  as  this  noble  art 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  monk — the  man  of  God — so  long  had 
we  masterpieces  of  painting,  such  as  have  never  been  equalled 


112  The  Church,  the  Mother 

by  any  that  since  came  forth — masterpieces  by  men  who  fasted 
and  prayed,  and  looked  upon  their  task,  as  painters,  to  be  a 
heavenly  and  a  holy  one.  We  read  of  the  blessed  Angelico,  the 
Dominican  painter,  whose  works  are  the  glory  of  the  world  to- 
day— we  read  of  him,  that  he  never  laid  his  brush  to  a  painting 
of  the  Mother  of  God,  or  of  our  Lord,  except  on  the  day  when 
he  had  been  at  Holy  Communion.  We  read  of  him  that  he 
never  painted  the  infant  Jesus,  or  the  Crucifixion,  except  on  his 
knees.  We  read  of  him  that  whilst  he  brought  out  the  divine 
sorrow  in  the  Virgin  Mother,  for  the  Saviour  on  the  cross — 
whilst  he  brought  out  the  God-like  tribulation  of  Him  who  suf- 
fered there — he  was  obliged  to  dash  the  tears  from  his  eyes — 
the  tears  of  love — the  tears  of  compassion — which  produced  the 
high  inspiration  of  his  genius.  Nay,  the  history  of  this  art  of 
painting  teaches  us  that  all  the  great  masters  were  eminent  as 
religious  men,  and  that  when  they  separated  from  the  Church, 
as  we  see,  their  inspiration  left  them.  The  finest  works  that 
Raphael  ever  painted  were  those  which  he  painted  in  his  youth, 
whilst  his  heart  was  yet  pure,  and  before  the  admiration  of  the 
world  had  made  him  stain  the  integrity  of  his  soul  by  sin.  The 
rugged,  the  almost  omnipotent  genius  of  Michael  Angelo,  was 
that  of  a  man  deeply  impressed  with  faith,  and  most  earnestly 
devoted  to  the  practice  of  his  religion.  When,  over  the  high 
altar  of  the  Sistine  Chapel,  he  brings  out  all  the  terrors  of  the 
Divine  Judgment,  which  he  puts  there  in  a  manner  that  makes 
the  beholder  tremble  to-day — the  Lord,  in  the  attitude,  not  of 
blessing,  but  of  sweeping  denunciation  over  the  heads  of  the 
wicked — he  took  good  care,  by  prayer,  by  frequenting  the  sacra- 
ments, by  frequent  confession  and  communion,  and  by  the 
purity  of  his  life,  to  avert  the  judgments  that  he  painted  from 
falling  on  his  own  head.  The  most  glorious  epoch  in  the  history 
of  architecture  was  precisely  that  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth 
centuries,  when  there  arose  the  minsters  of  York ;  of  West- 
minster ;  of  Notre  Dame,  in  Paris ;  of  Rouen  ;  and  all  the  won- 
derful old  churches  that,  to-day,  are  the  astonishment  of  the 
world,  for  the  grandeur  and  majesty  of  their  proportions,  and 
the  beauty  of  design  they  reveal.  These  churches  sprung  up  at 
the  very  time  that  the  Church  alone  held  undisputed  sway ; 
when  all  the  arts  were  in  her  hands,  and  when  the  architects 
who  built  them  were  nearly  all  consecrated  sons  of  the  cloister. 


And  Inspiration  of  Art.  II j 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  we  do  not  know  the  name  ol  the 
architect  that  built  St.  Patrick's,  or  Christ  Church,  in  Dublin, 
We  do  not  know  the  name  of  the  architect  that  built  West- 
minster Abbey,  nor  any  one  of  these  great  and  mighty  mediaeval 
churches  throughout  Europe.  We  know,  indeed,  the  name  of 
the  architect  who  built  St.  Paul's,  in  London,  and  of  him  who 
built  St.  Peter's,  in  Rome.  They  were  laymen.  The  men  who 
built  the  marvellous  mediaeval  churches  were  monks,  and  are 
now  in  the  dust ;  and,  in  their  humility,  they  brought  the  secret 
of  their  genius  to  the  grave,  and  no  names  of  theirs  are  em- 
blazoned on  the  annals  of  the  world's  fame. 

Thus  we  see  the  highest  inspiration  of  the  arts — music,  paint- 
ing,  and  architecture — came  from  the  Catholic  Church,  and  that 
the  most  attractive  of  them  all  were  created  in  her  cloisters. 
The  greatest  painters  that  ever  lived  had  come  forth  from  her 
bosom,  animated  by  her  spirit.  The  greatest  churches  that  ever 
were  built  were  built  and  designed  by  her  consecrated  children. 
The  grand  strains  of  ecclesiastical  music,  expressing  the  highest 
ideas,  resounded  in  her  cathedral  churches.  The  world  had 
grown  under  her  fostering  care.  Young  republics  had  sprung 
up  under  the  Church's  hand  and  guidance.  The  Italian  repub- 
lics— the  republics  of  Florence,  of  Pisa,  of  Venice,  of  Genoa — 
all  gained  their  municipal  rights  and  rights  of  citizenship  (rights 
that  were  established  for  protection,  and  to  insure  equality  of 
the  law)  under  the  Church's  protection.  Nay,  more.  The 
Church  was  ever  willing  and  ready,  both  by  legislation  and  by 
action,  to  curb  the  petty  tyrants  that  oppressed  the  people ;  to 
oblige  the  rugged  castellan  to  emancipate  his  slaves.  The 
Church  was  ever  ready  to  send  her  highest  representatives, 
archbishops  and  cardinals,  into  the  presence  of  kings,  to  demand 
the  people's  rights ;  and  the  very  man  who  wrung  the  first 
principles  of  the  British  Constitution  from  an  unwilling  and 
tyrannical  king,  was  the  Catholic  Archbishop  of  Canterbury — 
the  only  man  who  would  dare  to  do  it,  for  (and  well  the  tyrant 
knew  it)  he  could  not  touch  the  archbishop,  because  the  arm  of 
the  Church  was  outstretched  for  his  protection.  Society  was 
formed  under  her  eyes  and  under  her  care.  Her  work  now 
seemed  to  be  nearly  completed,  when  the  Almighty  God,  in 
His  wisdom,  let  fall  a  calamity  upon  the  world.  And  I  think 
you  will  agree  with  me — even  such  amongst  you  (if  there  be 

8 


114  TJie  Church,  the  Mother 

any)  who  are  not  Catholics — that  a  calamity  it  was.  A  calamity 
fell  upon  the  world  in  the  sixteenth  century,  which  not  only 
divided  the  Church  in  faith,  and  separated  nations  from  her,  but 
which  introduced  new  principles,  new  influences,  new  and  hostile 
agencies,  which  were  destructive  of  the  most  sacred  rights.  I 
am  not  here  this  evening  so  much  a  preacher  as  a  lecturer;  I 
am  speaking  to  you  rather  as  an  historian  than  as  a  priest  ;  and 
I  ask  you  to  consider  this :  We  are  accustomed  to  hear  on  every 
side  that  Protestantism  was  the  emancipation  of  the  human 
intellect  from  the  slavery  of  the  pope.  To  that  I  have  only  to 
answer  this  one  word  :  Protestantism  substituted  the  uncertainty 
of  opinion  instead  of  the  certainty  of  faith  which  is  in  the 
Catholic  Church.  Protestantism  declared  that  there  was  no 
voice  on  earth  authorized  or  empowered  to  proclaim  the  truth 
of  God  ;  that  the  voice  that  had  proclaimed  it  for  fifteen  hundred 
years  had  told  a  lie ;  that  the  people  were  not  to  accept  the 
teaching  of  the  Catholic  Church  as  an  authoritative  and  time- 
honored  law,  but  that  they  were  to  go  out  and  look  for  the  faith 
for  themselves — and  in  the  worst  way  of  all.  Every  man  was  to 
find  a  faith  for  himself;  and  when  he  had  found  it  he  had  no 
satisfactory  guarantee,  no  certainty,  that  he  had  the  true  inter- 
pretation of  the  truth.  If  this  be  emancipating  the  intellect — 
if  this  changing  of  certainty  into  uncertainty,  dogma  into 
opinion,  faith  into  a  search  after  faith,  be  emancipation  of  the 
intellect — then  Christ  must  have  told  a  lie  when  he  said  :  "  You 
shall  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free  ! "  The 
knowledge  of  the  truth  he  declared  to  be  the  highest  freedom ; 
and,  therefore,  I  hold,  not  as  a  priest,  but  simply  as  a  philoso- 
pher, that  the  assertion  is  false  which  says  that  the  work  of 
Protestantism  was  the  emancipation  of  the  intellect.  All  the 
results  of  modern  progress — all  the  scientific  success  and  re- 
searches that  have  been  made — in  a  word,  all  the  great  things 
that  have  been  done,  are  all  laid  down  quietly  at  the  feet  of 
Protestantism  as  the  effects  of  this  change  of  religion.  In  Eng- 
land nothing  is  more  common  than  for  good  Protestants  to  say, 
that  the  reason  why  we  are  now  in  so  civilized  a  condition  is 
because  Martin  Luther  set  up  the  Protestant  religion.  Pro- 
testantism claims  the  electric  telegraph.  The  Atlantic  cable 
does  not  lie  so  much  in  a  bed  of  sand  as  on  a  holy  bed  of  Pro- 
testantism that  stretches  from  shore  to  shore!     They  forget 


And  Inspiration  ef  Art.  1 15 

that  there  is  a  philosophical  axiom  which  says  :  "  One  thing  may 
come  after  another,  and  yet  it  may  not  be  caused  by  the  thing 
that  went  before."  If  one  thing  comes  after  another  it  does 
not  follow  that  it  is  the  effect  of  the  other.  It  is  true  that  all 
these  things  have  sprung  up  in  the  world  since  Protestantism 
appeared.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  the  many  have  learned  to 
-read  since  Protestantism  gained  ground.  But  why  ?  Is  it 
because  the  Catholic  Church  kept  the  people  in  ignorance? 
No;  it  was  because  of  a  single  want.  It  was  about  the  time 
Protestantism  sprung  up  that  the  art  of  printing  was  invented. 
Of  course  the  many  were  not  able  to  read  when  they  had  no 
books.  The  Catholic  Church,  as  history  proved,  was  even  far 
more  zealous  than  the  Protestant  new-born  sect  in  multiplying 
copies  of  the  Scripture,  and  in  multiplying  books  for  the  people 
One  of  the  reproaches  that  is  made  to  us  to-day  is,  that  we  are  too 
busy  in  the  cause  of  education.  Surely,  if  the  Catholic  Church 
is  the  mother  of  ignorance,  that  reproach  cannot  be  truly  made. 
Now,  Protestants  are  making  a  noise,  and  saying  that  the  Church, 
in  every  country  and  on  every  side,  is  planning  and  claiming  to 
educate!  But  all  this  is  outside  of  my  question.  My  question 
deals  with  the  fine  arts. 

Now,  mark  the  change  that  took  place!  Protestantism,  un- 
doubtedly, weakened  the  Church's  influence  upon  society. 
Undoubtedly,  it  took  out  of  the  Church's  hands  a  great  deal  of 
that  power  which  we  have  seen  the  Catholic  Church  exercise 
for  more  than  a  thousand  years,  upon  the  fine  arts.  They  claim: 
or  they  set  up  a  rival  claim,  to  foster  the  arts  of  music,  of 
architecture,  and  of  painting,  so  that  these  may  no  longer  claim 
to  receive  their  special  inspiration  from  the  Church,  which  was 
their  mother  and  their  creator,  and  through  which  they  drew 
their  heavenly  genius.  Well,  the  arts  were  thus  divided  in  their 
allegiance,  and  thus  deprived  of  their  inspiration,  by  the  institu- 
tion of  this  new  religion.  I  ask  you  to  consider,  historically, 
whether  that  inspiration  of  art,  that  high  and  glorious  inspira- 
tion, that  magnificent  ideal,  was  not  destroyed  the  moment  it 
was  taken  from  under  the  guidance  and  inspiration  of  the  Cath 
olic  Church?  I  say  that  it  was  destroyed  ;  and  I  can  prove  it. 
Since  the  day  that  Protestantism  was  founded,  architecture  has 
decayed  and  fallen  away.  No  great  cathedral  has  been  built. 
No  great  original  has  appeared.     No  new  idea  has  been   ex- 


n6  The  Church,  the  Mother 

pressed  from  the  day  that  Luther  declared  schism  in  the  Church, 
and  warred  against  legitimate  authority.  No  Protestant  has 
ever  originated  a  noble  model  in  modern  architecture.  It  has 
sunk  down  into  a  servile  imitation  of  the  ancient  grovelling 
forms  of  Greece  and  Rome.  Nay,  whenever  the  ancient  Gothic 
piles — majestic  and  inspiring  Christian  churches — fell  into  their 
hands,  what  did  they  do  ?  They  pulled  them  down,  in  order  to 
build  up  some  vile  Grecian  imitation,  or  else  they  debased  the 
ancient  grandeur  and  purity  of  the  Gothic  cathedral,  by  mixing 
in  a  wretched  imitation  of  some  ancient  heathen  or  pagan 
temple. 

As  to  the  art  of  painting :  the  painter  no  longer  looked  up 
to  heaven  for  his  subject.  The  painter  no  longer  considered 
that  his  pious  idea  was  to  instruct  and  elevate  his  fellow-man. 
The  painter  no  longer  selected  for  his  subjects  the  Mother  of 
God,  or  the  sacred  humanity  of  our  Lord,  or  the  angels  and 
saints  of  heaven.  The  halo  of  light  that  was  shed  upon  the 
brush  of  the  blessed  Angelico — the  halo  of  divine  light  that  sur- 
rounded the  Virgin's  face  as  it  grew  under  the  creative  hand  of 
the  young  Christian  painter  of  Urbino,  disappeared.  The  high- 
est ambition  of  the  painter  now  is  to  sketch  a  landscape  true  to 
nature.  The  highest  excellence  of  art  seems  now  to  be  to  catch 
the  colors  that  approach  most  faithfully  to  the  flesh-tints  of  the 
human  body.  And  it  is  a  remarkable  fact,  my  friends,  that  the 
art  of  animal  painting — painting  cows  and  horses,  and  all  these 
things — began  with  Protestantism.  One  of  the  very  first  animal 
painters  was  Roos,  a  German  Protestant,  who  came  to  Rome, 
and  the  reproach  of  his  fellow-painters  was,  "  There  is  the  man 
that  paints  the  cows  and  horses."  Even  sacred  subjects  were 
dealt  with  in  this  debased  form — in  this  low  and  empty  inspira- 
tion. Look,  for  instance,  at  the  Magdalens,  at  the  Madonnas 
of  Rubens.  Rubens,  himself,  was  a  pious  Catholic  ;  yet  his 
paintings  displayed  the  very  genius  of  Protestantism.  If  he 
wanted  to  paint  the  Blessed  Virgin,  he  selected  some  corpulent 
and  gross-looking  woman,  in  whom  he  found  some  ray  of  mere 
sensual  beauty  that  struck  his  eye,  and  he  put  her  on  the  canvas, 
and  held  her  up  before  men  as  the  Virgin,  whose  prayer  was  to 
save,  and  whose  power  was  above  that  of  the  angels.  The 
artist  who  would  truly  represent  her  on  canvas  must  have  his 
pencils  touched  with  the  purity  and  grandeur  of  heaven. 


And  Inspiration  of  Art.  \\j 

Music.  Music  lost  its  inspiration  when  it  fell  from  under  the 
guidance  of  the  Church.  No  longer  were  its  strains  the  echoes 
of  heaven.  No  longer  is  the  burden  of  the  hymn  the  heavenly 
aspiration  of  the  human  soul,  tending  towards  its  last  and  final 
beatitude.  Oh,  no  !  but  every  development  that  this  high  and 
heavenly  science  receives,  is  a  simple  degradation  into  the  cele- 
bration of  human  passion;  into  the  magnifying  of  human  pride; 
into  the  illustration  of  all  that  is  worst  and  vilest  in  man ;  and 
the  highest  theme  of  the  musician  to-day  is  not  the  "  Dies 
Irae  ;"  it  is  not  the  "  Stabat  Mater,"  the  wailing  voice  of  the 
Virgin's  sorrow;  it  is  not  the  "Alleluia,"  to  proclaim  to  the 
world  the  glories  of  the  risen  God ;  no,  the  highest  theme  of  the 
musician,  to-day,  is  to  take  up  some  story  of  sensual,  and  merely 
human,  love ;  to  set  that  forth  with  all  the  charms  and  all  the 
meretricious  embellishments  of  art.  Thus  do  we  behold  in  ou» 
own  experience  of  to-day,  how  the  arts  went  down,  and  lost  theii 
inspiration,  as  soon  as  there  were  taken  from  them  the  genius 
and  the  inspiring  influence  of  the  Church  that  created  them, 
and,  through  them,  civilized  the  world,  and  brought  to  us  what- 
ever we  have  of  civilization  and  refinement  in  this  nineteenth 
century.  Thank  God,  the  reign  of  evil  cannot  last  long  upon 
this  earth.  It  is  one  of  the  mysterious  circumstances  that  the 
coming  of  our  Lord  developed.  Before  the  Incarnation  of  the 
Son  of  God,  an  evil  idea  seemed  to  be  in  the  nature  of  man.  It 
propagated  itself,  it  found  a  home  and  an  abiding  dwelling 
amongst  the  children  of  men.  But,  since  the  Incarnation  of  the 
Son  of  God,  since  the  Eternal  Word  of  God  vouchsafed  to  take 
a  human  soul,  a  human  body,  human  sensibilities,  and,  I  will 
add,  human  genius — since  that  time,  the  base,  and  the  vile,  and 
the  ephemeral,  and  the  degraded,  may  come  ;  may  debase  art 
and  artists  ;  may  spoil  the  spirit  of  art  for  a  time — but  it  cannot 
last  very  long.  There  is  a  native  force,  a  nobleness  in  the  soul 
of  man  that  rises  in  revolt  against  it.  And  to-day,  even  to-day, 
the  hour  of  revival  seems  to  be  coming — almost  arrived — is  al- 
ready come.  The  three  arts  of  painting,  of  music,  and  archi- 
tecture, seem  to  be  rising  with  their  former  inspiration,  and 
seem  to  catch  again  a  little  of  the  departed  light  that  was  shed 
on  them  and  flowed  through  them,  from  religion.  Architecture 
revives,  and  the  glories  of  the  thirteenth  century,  though  cer- 
tainly they  may  not  be  eclipsed,  are  almost  equalled   by  the 


n8  The  Church,  the  Mother 

glories  of  the  nineteenth.  But  a  short  distance  from  this,  you 
see,  in  the  middle  of  this  great  city,  rising  in  its  wonderfu/ 
beauty,  that  which  promises  to  be,  and  is  to  be,  of  all  the  glorie; 
of  this  country,  the  most  glorious — the  great  cathedral.  Across 
the  water  you  see,  in  the  neighboring  city  of  Brooklyn,  the  fail 
and  magnificent  proportions  of  that  which  will  be,  in  a  few  years, 
the  glory  of  that  adjacent  shore,  when  on  this  side  and  on  that 
each  tower,  and  spire,  and  pinnacle  upholding  an  angel  or  saint 
the  highest  of  all  will  uphold  the  Cross  of  Jesus. Christ.  Music 
is  reviving  again — catching  again  the  pure  spirit  of  the  past.  A 
taste  for  the  serene,  the  pure,  the  most  spiritual  songs  of  the 
Church,  is  every  day  gaining  ground,  and  taking  hold  of  the 
imagination.  Painting,  thank  God,  is  reviving  again  ;  and  of 
this  you  have  here  abundant  proof.  Look  around  you.  Nc 
gross,  earthly  figure  stands  out  in  the  bare  proportions  of  flesh 
and  blood.  No  vile  exposure  of  the  mere  flesh  invites  the  eye 
of  the  voluptuous  to  feast  itself  upon  the  sight.  The  purity  of 
God  is  here.  The  purity  of  the  Church  of  God  overhangs  it, 
and  the  story  of  these  scenes  will  go  home  to  your  hearts  and 
to  the  hearts  of  your  children,  as  the  story  that  the  blessed 
Angelico  told  in  Florence  six  hundred  years  ago.  Thanks  be  to 
God  it  is  so  !  Thanks  be  to  God  that  when  I  lift  up  my  eyes  I 
may  see  so  much  of  the  purity  of  the  face  down  which  flow  the 
last  tears  of  blood  !  When  I  lift  up  mine  eyes  here  it  seems  to 
me  as  if  I  stood  bodily  in  the  holy  society  of  these  men.  It 
seems  to  me  that  I  see  in  the  face  of  John  the  expression  of  the 
highest  manly  sympathy  that  comforted  and  consoled  the  dying 
eyes  of  the  Saviour.  It  seems  to  me  that  I  behold  the  Blessed 
Virgin,  whose  maternal  heart  consented  in  that  hour  of  agony 
to  be  broken  for  the  sins  of  men.  It  seems  to  me  that  I  behold 
the  Magdalen,  as  she  clings  to  the  Cross,  and  receives  upon  that 
hair  with  which  she  wiped  His  feet,  the  drops  of  His  blood.  It 
seems  to  me  that  I  behold  that  heart,  humbled  in  penance  and 
inflamed  with  love — the  heart  of  the  woman  who  had  loved 
much,  and  for  whom  He  had  prayed.  It  seems  to  me  that  I 
travel  step  by  step  to  Calvary,  and  learn,  as  they  unite  in  Him, 
every  lesson  of  suffering,  of  peace,  of  hope,  of  joy,  and  of  divine 
love  ! 

Thank  God,  it   is  fitting  in  a  Dominican   church   that   this 
should  be  so !     It  is  fitting  in  a  temple  of  rry  order  that,  when  I 


And  Inspiration  of  Art.  i.g 

look  upon  the  image  of  my  Holy  Father  over  that  entrance,  in 
imagination,  and  without  an  effort,  I  travel  back  to  the  spot 
where  I  had  the  happiness  to  live  my  student's  days,  and  where, 
in  the  very  cell  in  which  I  dwelt,  I  beheld  from  Angelico's  own 
hand  a  glorious  specimen  of  his  art.  These  are  the  gladnesr 
of  our  eyes,  the  joy  of  our  hearts.  They  give  us  reason  to  re 
joice  with  him  who  said  :  "  I  have  loved,  oh  Lord,  the  beauty 
of  Thy  house,  and  the  place  where  Thy  glory  dwelleth."  The) 
give  us  reason  to  rejoice,  because  they  are  not  only  fair  and 
beautiful  in  themselves,  but  they  are  also  the  guarantee  and  the 
promise  that  the  traditions  of  ecclesiastical  painting,  sculpture, 
architecture,  and  music,  in  this  new  country,  will  yet  come  out 
and  rival  all  the  glories  of  the  nations  that  for  centuries  and  cen- 
turies have  upheld  the  Cross.  They  are  a  cause  of  gladness  to 
us,  for,  when  we  shall  have  passed  away,  our  children  and  oui 
children's  children  shall  come  here,  and,  in  reviewing  these  pic- 
tures, will  learn  to  feel  the  love  of  Jesus  Christ.  Amongst  the 
traditions  of  one  of  the  old  cities  of  Belgium,  there  is  one  of  a 
little  boy  who  grew  up,  visiting  every  day  the  cathedral  of  the 
city.  One  day  he  stood  with  wondering  and  child-like  eyes  be- 
fore a  beautiful  painting  of  the  Infant  Jesus.  According  as  time 
went  on,  and  reason  grew  upon  him,  his  love  for  the  picture 
became  greater  and  greater  ;  and  when  he  became  a  man,  his 
love  for  it  was  so  great  that  he  spent  his  days  in  the  cathedral 
as  organist,  pealing  forth  the  praises  of  the  Son  of  God.  His 
manhood  went  down  into  the  vale  of  years,  but  his  love  for  the 
picture  was  still  the  one  child-love — the  young  love  and  passion 
of  his  heart.  And  so  he  lived,  a  child  of  art,  and  died  in  the 
odor  of  sanctity  of  God.  And  that  art  had  fulfilled  its  highest 
mission,  for  it  had  sanctified  the  soul  of  a  man.  Oh,  may  these 
pictures  that  we  look  upon  with  so  much  pleasure — may  they 
teach  to  you,  and  to  your  children  after  you,  the  lesson  they  are 
intended  to  teach,  of  the  love,  of  the  charity,  of  the  mercy  of 
Jesus  ;  that,  loving  Him  and  loving  the  beauty  of  His  house, 
and  catching  every  gleam  that  faith  reveals  of  her  higher  beauty, 
and  everything  that  speaks  of  Him  forever,  you  may  come  to 
behold  Him  as  He  shines  in  the  uncreated  light  and  majesty  of 
His  glory  ! 


THE  GROUPINGS  OF  CALVARY." 

ST.  JOHN,  THE  EVANGELIST. 


f  Delivered  on  Sunday,  March   24th,  in  the  Dominican  Church  of  St.  Vincent 
Ferrer,  New  York.] 

TOLD  you  this  morning,  my  brethren,  that  we  should 
confine  our  attention  during  the  next  few  days  to  the 
groupings  that  surrounded  our  Blessed  Lord  upon  the 
Hill  of  Calvary.  I  then  intended,  this  evening,  to  put 
before  you  the  various  characters  and  classes  of  men  who  were 
there  as  the  enemies  of  God.  I  must,  however,  alter  somewhat 
*.his  programme.  To-morrow  will  be  the  Feast  of  the  Annun- 
ciation of  the  Blessed  Virgin — one  of  the  greatest  festivals  of 
the  Christian  year — commemorating  a  mystery  from  which  all 
the  mysteries  of  our  redemption  are  derived.  It  will  be  held,  as 
you  are  aware,  of  obligation  ;  and,  therefore,  I  shall  be  obliged 
so  far  to  depart  from  my  original  design,  as  to  let  in,  to-morrow 
evening,  a  sermon  on  the  great  festival  of  the  day — the  Annun- 
ciation of  the  Blessed  Virgin.  Thus  far  I  must  interfere  with 
the  plan  I  have  laid  down,  and  this  will  oblige  me,  this  evening, 
simply  to  notice  briefly  the  different  groups  and  classes  by  which 
the  enemies  of  our  Divine  Lord  were  represented  upon  Calvary 
We  shall  then  pass,  at  once,  to  the  consideration  of  the  ma. 
who  stood  there  as  the  friend  of  his  dying  Lord  and  Saviour. 

There  were  many  classes  of  men  surrounding  our  Blessed 
Lord  on  that  fearful  and  terrible  journey,  when,  starting  from 
the  court  of  his  condemnation,  He  turned  his  face  toward 
Calvary,  and  set  out  upon  the  dolorous  "  Way  of  the  Cross." 
The  men  who  condemned  Him,  sitting  in  that  tribunal,  were 
not  satisfied  with  that  sentence  ;  but,  in  the  eagerness  of  then 


The  Groupings  of  Calvary.  12 1 

revenge,  they  would  fain  witness  his  execution — following  out 
the  expressed  word  of  the  Evangelist,  that  the  Scribes  and 
Pharisees  followed  our  Lord,  and  fed  their  revengeful  eyes  upon 
the  contemplation  of  His  three  hours  of  agony  on  the  Cross. 
The  immediate  agents  of  this  terrible  act  of  execution  were  the 
Roman  soldiers  of  the  cohort,  who  had  scourged  Him,  who  had 
crowned  Him  with  thorns,  and  who  accompanied  Him  with 
stolid  indifference  to  the  place  of  His  execution.  They  were 
pagans.  They  were  men  who  had  never  heard  the  name  of 
God.  They  were  men  who,  had  they  heard  it,  must  have  heard 
it  in  a  language  which  they  scarcely  understood,  and  which  was 
the  medium  of  the  common  record  of  what  were  called  "  the 
wonders," — that  is,  of  the  miracles  of  Christ.  But  it  scarcely 
stirred  up  in  them  even  a  natural  curiosity  ;  and,  therefore,  they 
brought  Him  to  execution,  as  they  would  have  dragged  any 
other  criminal,  with  this  one  exception,  that,  by  a  strange,  dia- 
bolical possession,  they  looked  upon  this  man  of  whom  they 
knew  nothing — upon  this  man  who  had  never  injured  them  in 
word  or  in  deed — with  intense  abhorrence,  and  hated  Him  with 
an  inexplicable  hatred.  They  thus  typified  the  nations  who 
know  not  the  Lord  of  Truth.  In  paganism,  in  the  darkness 
and  wickedness  of  their  infidelity,  they  know  not  the  name  of 
God.  When  that  name  is  pronounced  in  their  presence,  it  falls 
upon  their  ears  rather  as  the  name  of  an  enemy  than  that  of  a 
friend.  They  cannot  explain  why  they  hate  Him.  No  more 
can  we  explain  the  hatred  of  the  Roman  soldiers.  The  mission- 
ary goes  forth  to-day  in  all  the  power  of  the  priesthood  of 
Christ.  He  stands  in  the  presence  of  the  people  of  China,  or  of 
Japan.  As  long  as  he  speaks  to  them  of  the  civilization,  of  the 
immense  military  power,  of  the  riches  and  of  the  glory  of  the 
country  from  which  he  comes,  they  hear  him  willingly  and  with 
interested  ears.  As  long  as  he  reveals  to  them  any  secret  of 
human  science,  they  make  use  of  him,  they  are  glad  to  receive 
him.  Thus  it  is,  we  know,  that  some  of  the  Jesuit  missionaries 
held  the  very  highest  places  at  the  court  of  the  Emperor  of 
China.  But  as  soon  as  ever  the  missionary  mentions  the  name 
of  Christ,  they  not  only  refuse  to  hear  him,  but  they  are  stirred 
up,  on  the  instant,  with  diabolical  rage;  hate  and  anger  flash 
from  their  eyes  ;  and  they  lay  hold  of  the  messenger  who  bring 
eth  them  the  message  of  peace,  and  love,  and  of  eternal  life. 


122  The  Groupings  of  Calvary. 

and  they  imagine  they  have  not  fulfilled  frieir  duty  until  they 
have  shed  his  heart's  blood  upon  the  spot.  Oh,  how  vast  the 
crowd  of  those  who,  for  centuries,  have  thus  greeted  the  Son 
of  God  and  every  man  who  speaks  in  His  name !  Think  of  the 
outlying  millions,  to  whom,  for  eighteen  hundred  years  and 
more,  the  Church- — the  messenger  of  God — has  preached  and 
appealed,  but  in  vain  !  Behold  the  class  that  was  represented 
round  the  Cross,  lifting  up  indifferent,  stolid,  or,  if  anything, 
scowling  faces,  amid  the  woes  of  Him  who,  in  that  hour  of  His 
agony  and  of  His  humiliation,  mingled  His  prayers  for  forgive- 
ness with  the  last  drop  of  blood  that  flowed  through  His  wounds 
from  His  dying  heart ! 

There  is  another  class  there.  It  is  made  up  of  those  who 
knew  Him  well,  or  who  ought  to  have  known  Him.  They  had 
seen  His  miracles;  they  had  witnessed  His  sanctity;  they  had 
disputed  with  Him  upon  the  laws,  until  He  had  convinced 
them  that  His  was  the  wisdom  that  could  not  belong  to  man, 
but  to  God.  He  had  silenced  them.  He  had  answered  every 
argument  that  foolhardy  and  audacious  men  made  to  Him. 
He  had  reduced  them  to  such  shame  that  no  man  ever  dared  to 
question  Him  again.  But  He  interfered  with  their  interests 
and  their  pride.  That  pride  revolted  against  submitting  to 
Him.  That  self-love  and  self-interest  prompted  the  thought 
that  if  He  lived,  His  light  would  outshine  theirs,  and  their  in- 
fluence with  the  people  would  be  gone.  These  were  the  Scribes 
and  the  Pharisees.  They  were  the  leaders  of  the  people. 
They  were  the  magistrates  of  Jerusalem.  They  were  the  men 
whose  loud  voice  and  authoritative  tones  were  heard  in  the 
Temple.  They  were  the  men  who  walked  into  that  house  as 
if  it  was  not  the  house  of  God,  but  their  house.  They  were 
the  men  who  walked  fearlessly  up  to  the  altar,  to  speak  word? 
of  blasphemous  pride,  and  call  them  prayers.  They  were  the 
men  who  despised  the  humble  Publican  making  his  act  of  contri- 
tion. They  were  the  men  who  lifted  their  virtuous  hands  and 
hypocritical  eyes  to  heaven  to  lament  over  the  weakness  of 
human  nature.  They  were  the  men  who  hated  Christ,  because 
they  could  not  argue  with  Him — because  they  could  not  uphold 
their  errors  against  His  truth — because  they  could  not  hold 
their  own,  but  were  struck  dumb  at  the  sight  of  His  sanctity 
and  the  sound  of  His   powerful   voice.     What   did    they  dc  ? 


The  Groupings  of  Calvary.  123 

They  began  to  tell  lies  to  the  people.  They  began  to  tell  ihe 
people  how  He  was  an  impostor  and  a  blasphemer.  They  began 
to  mislead  the  people — to  destroy  the  estimate  that  people 
might  make  of  Jesus  Christ.  They  endeavored  to  tmd  false 
witnesses  to  bring  them  to  swear  away  first  His  character  and 
then  His  life.  Ah  !  need  I  say  whom  they  represent  ?  Need  1 
tell  a  people  in  whose  memories  is  fresh  to-day  the  ever-recur- 
ring lie  that  is  flung  in  the  face  of  the  Catholic  Church— the 
ever-recurring  false  testimony  that  is  brought  against  her — the 
burning  of  her  churches,  the  defiling  of  her  altars,  the  outrages 
on  her  priests,  the  insults  heaped  upon  her  holy  nuns,  the  peo- 
ple inflamed  against  the  very  name  of  Catholicity  itself,  so  that 
the  word  might  be  fulfilled  of  Him  who  said  :  "They  shall  cast 
out  your  very  name  as  evil  for  my  sake ;"  the  men  who  made 
the  very  name  of  a  monk,  or  a  friar,  or  a  Jesuit  mean  some- 
thing awfully  gross,  or  sensual,  or  material !  These  men  were 
naturally  worldly  and  deceitful.  I  need  not  point  out  to  you 
that,  in  the  midst  of  you,  and  every  day — from  their  pulpits, 
from  their  conventicles,  through  their  daily  press — every  day 
we  are  made  familiar  with  the  old  lie,  shifted  and  changed, 
tortured,  distorted,  and  twisted,  and  the  false  testimony 
brought  out  in  a  thousand  forms  of  falsehood.  And  there 
were  others  who  believed  in  Christ — who  knew  Him — who 
had  enjoyed  His  conversation  and  His  friendship,  and  who 
were  afraid  to  be  seen  in  His  company  in  that  dark  hour,  and 
upon  that  hill  of  shame.  Where  were  the  Apostles  ?  Where 
were  the  Disciples?  They  had  fled  from  their  Master  because 
ic  was  dangerous  to  be  seen  with  Him.  Judas,  the  representa- 
tive of  the  man  who  sells  his  religion  and  his  God  for  this 
world  ;  who  sells  his  conscience  in  order  to  fill  his  purse  ;  who 
sells  everything  that  is  most  sacred  when  that  demand  is  made 
upon  him  for  temporal  profit  and  pelf;  who  seals  his  iniquity 
by  a  bad  communion  in  order  to  save  appearances  ;  and,  whilst 
with  one  hand  he  was  taking  money  from  the  Pharisees,  with 
the  other  hand  he  was  taking  Christ  to  his  breast  ;  the  man 
who  played  a  double  part ;  the  man  who  did  not  wish  to  break 
utterly  with  his  Lord,  nor  to  sacrifice  the  good  opinion  of  his 
fellow-apostles ;  and,  therefore,  he  received  damnation  to  him- 
self in  a  bad  communion — he  does  not  dare  to  climb  the  rugged 
steep  of  Calvary;  but  he  stands  afar  off,  and   beholds  a  terrible 


124  The  Groupings  of  Calvary. 

sight ;  he  sees  passing  before  his  eyes  his  Lord,  his  Master,  in 
whose  innocence  he  believes,  though  he  has  betrayed  Him  ; 
his  Lord,  his  Master,  torn  with  scourges  from  head  to  foot, 
crowned  with  thorns,  covered  with  blood  ;  his  Lord  and  his 
Master,  who  had  so  often  spoken  to  him  words  of  friendship 
and  of  love,  passed  before  the  eyes  of  the  renegade  and  trai- 
tor. As  he  looked,  and  his  eyes  caught,  for  an  instant,  the 
countenance  of  that  figure,  tottering  along  in  weakness  and 
in  pain — the  sight  brought  back  remembrance  of  the  days 
that  were  gone,  with  no  glimmering  of  hope,  no  light  of  con- 
solation to  his  soul,  but  only  the  feeling  that  he  had  betrayed 
his  God,  and  that  he  held  then  in  his  infamous  purse  the 
money  for  which  he  had  sold  his  soul  and  his  conscience.  He 
stood  aghast  and  pale.  He  tore  his  hair,  and  uplifted  his  des- 
pairing hands.  He  found  that  he  could  not  live  to  see  the  con- 
summation of  his  iniquity ;  and  before  the  Saviour  had  sent 
forth  the  last  cry  for  a  redeemed  world,  the  soul  of  the  suicide 
Judas  had  gone  down  to  hell !  "  It  were  better  for  him  had  he 
never  been  born!"  Does  he  represent  any  class?  Are  there 
not  in  this  world  men  who  are  almost  glad  to  have  something 
to  barter  with  the  world,  when  they  give  up  their  holy  faith  and 
religion  in  order  to  clutch  this  world's  possessions  ?  Have  we 
not  read  in  the  history  of  the  nations — in  the  history  of  the 
land  from  which  most  of  us  sprang — have  we  never  read  of 
men  selling  their  faith  for  this  world's  riches  and  this  world's 
honors?  Have  we  never  read,  in  the  history  of  the  world,  of 
men  who,  in  order  to  save  appearances,  approached  the  holy 
altar  and  received  the  holy  communion  ?  Of  monarchs  who,  in 
order  to  stand  well  with  their  Catholic  subjects,  made  a  show 
of  going  to  holy  communion  ?  And  of  sycophants  and  cour- 
tiers who,  in  order  to  please  a  king,  in  a  fit  of  piety  or  a  fit  of 
repentance,  went  to  holy  communion  ?  But  time  will  not  per- 
mit me  to  linger  in  the  contemplation  of  the  many  classes  of  the 
worldly-minded  ;  the  false  friend,  the  bitter,  though  conscious, 
enemy,  the  heartless  executioners ;  the  men  who  surrounded 
Him  then,  exact  counterparts  of  those  whom  we  meet  to-day. 

But  there  was  one  there, — and  it  is  to  that  one  that  my 
thoughts  and  my  heart  turn  this  night.  There  was  one  there 
who  was  destined  to  be,  through  all  ages,  and  unto  all  nations, 
a  type  of  what  the  true  Christian  man — the  friend  of  Christ, 


The  Groupings  of  Calvary.  125 

must  be  ;  a  true  representative  of  the  part  that  he  must  play,  in 
the  sacrifice  that  from  time  to  time  he  must  make,  to  test  the 
strength  and  the  tenderness  of  his  love.  There  was  one  there, 
young  and  beautiful,  who  did  not  flinch  from  his  Master  and 
Lord  in  that  hour;  who  walked  by  His  side  ;  who  shared  in  the 
reproaches  that  were  showered  upon  the  head  of  the  Son  of 
God,  and  took  his  share  of  the  grief  and  the  shame  of  that  terri- 
ble morning  of  Good  Friday.  There  was  one  there  whom  the 
Master  permitted  to  be  there,  that  he  might,  as  it  were,  lean 
upon  the  strength  of  his  manhood  and  the  fearlessness  of  his 
love.  That  one  was  John  the  Evangelist.  Behold  him,  as,  with 
the  virginal  eyes,  he  looks  up  as  a  man  to  his  fellow-man  on  the 
Cross !  Behold  him  as  he  seems  to  say :  "  Oh,  Master !  Oh, 
Lover  of  my  soul  and  heart!  can  I  relieve  you  of  a  single  sor- 
row by  taking  it  up  and  making  it  my  own  ?  "  This  was  John. 
Consider  who  he  was,  and  what.  Three  graces  surrounded  him 
as  he  stood  at  the  foot  of  the  Cross.  Three  divine  gifts  form  a 
halo  of  heavenly  light  around  his  head.  They  were  the  grace 
of  Christian  purity,  the  grace  of  divine  love,  and  the  manliness 
of  the  bravery  that  despises  the  world,  when  it  is  a  question  of 
giving  testimony  of  love  and  of  fidelity  to  his  God  and  his 
Saviour — three  noble  gifts,  with  which  the  world  is  so  ill-sup- 
plied to-day !  Oh,  my  brethren,  need  I  tell  you  that  of  all  the 
evils  in  this  our  day,  there  is  one  which  has  arrived  at  such 
enormous  proportions  that  it  has  received  the  name  of  "  The 
Social  Evil  !  " — the  evil  which  finds  its  way  into  every  rank  and 
every  grade  of  society  ;  the  evil  which,  raising  its  miscreated 
head,  now  and  again  frightens  us,  and  terrifies  the  very  world 
by  the  evidence  of  its  wide-spread  pestilence ;  the  evil  that,  to- 
day, pollutes  the  heart,  destroys  the  soul  of  the  young,  and 
shakes  our  nature  and  our  manliness  to  its  very  foundations, 
and  brings  down  the  indignant  and  the  sweeping  curse  of  God 
upon  whole  nations  !  Need  I  tell  you  that  that  evil  is  the  ter- 
rible evil  of  impurity — the  unrestrained  passion,  the  foul  imagi- 
nation, the  debased  and  degraded  cravings  of  this  material  flesh 
and  blood  of  ours,  rising  up  in  rebellion,  and  declaring,  in  its 
inflamed  desires,  that  nothing  of  God's  law,  nothing  of  God's 
redemption  shall  move  it  ;  that  all,  all  may  perish,  but  it  must 
be  satiated  and  gorged  with  that  food  of  lust,  of  which,  the 
Scripture  says,  "the  taste  is  death."     Of  this    I   have  already 


126  The  Groupings  of  Calvary. 

spoken  to  you,  and  also  of  the  opposite  virtue,  the  "  index  " 
virtue,  as  it  is  called — the  virtue  of  virtues  ;  of  that  I  have  also 
spoken  to  you ;  that  by  which  lost  man  is  raised  up  to  the  very 
perfection  of  his  spiritual  nature  ;  by  which  the  Divine  efful- 
gence of  the  highest  resemblance  to  Christ  is  impressed  upon 
the  soul;  by  which  the  fragrance  and  brightness  of  the  Virgin, 
and  of  the  Virgin's  Son,  seems  to  shine  even  in  the  body  of  mar. 
as  well  as  in  the  spirit,  "  filling  the  whole  being,"  says  St.  Ephrem. 
"  with  the  odor  of  its  sweetness."  Such  virtue  of  angelic  purity 
did  Christ,  our  Lord,  come  to  establish  upon  earth.  Such  vir- 
tue did  He  lay  as  the  foundation  of  His  Church,  in  a  chaste  and 
a  virginal  priesthood  ;  in  the  foundations  of  society,  in  a  chaste 
and  pure  manhood ;  preserving  the  integrity  of  the  soul  in  the 
purity  of  the  body.  Such  virtue  belonged  to  John,  "the  disci- 
ple of  love;"  and  it  belonged  to  him  in  its  highest  phase;  for, 
as  the  Holy  Fathers,  and  the  interpreters  of  the  Church's  tra- 
ditions from  the  very  beginning,  and  notably,  St.  Peter  Damas- 
cus, tell  us, — John  the  Evangelist  was  a  virgin  from  the  cradle 
to  the  grave.  No  thought  of  human  love  ever  flashed  through 
his  mind.  No  angry  uprising  of  human  passion  ever  disturbed 
the  equable  nature  of  his  heavenly  tempered  soul  and  body. 
He  was  the  youngest  of  all  the  Apostles;  and  he  was  little 
more  than  a  youth  when  the  virgin-creating  eyes  of  Christ  fell 
upon  him.  Christ  looked  upon  him,  and  saw  a  virginal  body, 
fair  and  beautiful  in  its  translucent  purity  of  innocence.  He, 
the  Creator  and  Redeemer,  saw  a  soul  pure,  and  bright,  and 
unstained ;  a  soul  just  opening  into  manhood,  and  in  the  full 
possession  of  all  its  powers ;  and  a  tender,  yet  a  most  pure  heart, 
unfolding  itself  even  as  the  lily  bursts  forth  and  unfolds  its 
white  leaves  to  gather  in  its  cup  the  dews  of  heaven,  like  dia- 
mond drops,  in  its  heart  of  purest  whiteness.  So  did  our  Lord 
behold  the  fair  soul  of  John.  Jesus  Christ  spoke  in  that  virgin 
ear  the  words  of  invitation  ;  and  into  that  virgin  soul  He  dropped 
those  graces  of  Apostleship,  and  of  love,  and  of  tenderness,  and 
of  strength,  that,  lying  there  amongst  those  petals  of  glory, 
brought  forth  in  the  soul  of  the  young  man  all  that  was  radiant 
of  most  Christ-like  virtue.  A  virgin — that  is  to  say,  one  who 
never  let  a  thought  of  his  mind,  nor  an  affection  of  his  heart, 
stray  from  the  highest  form  of  Divine  love ;  thus  was  he  before 
he  had  beheld  the  face  of  his   Redeemer.      But  when  to  that 


The  Groupings  of  Calvary.  \2J 

virginal  parity,  which  naturally  seeks  the  love  of  God  in  its 
highest  form,  that  God  made  Himself  visible  in  the  shape  of 
the  sacred  humanity  of  our  Lord ;  when  the  virgin's  King,  the 
Prince,  and  the  leader  of  the  Virgin's  choir  in  heaven,  presented 
Himself  to  the  eyes  of  the  young  Apostle,  oh,  then,  with  the 
instinct  of  purity,  his  heart  seemed  to  go  forth  from  him  and  to 
seek  the  heart  of  Christ.  And  so  it  was  for  three  years,  under 
the  purifying  eyes  of  our  Lord.  He  lived  for  three  years  in  the 
most  intimate  communion  of  love  with  his  Master ;  distinguished 
from  all  the  other  Apostles,  of  whom  we  do  not  know  that  evei 
one  of  them  was  a  virgin,  but  only  John  ;  distinguished  from 
them  by  being  admitted,  through  his  privileged  virginal  purity, 
into  the  inner  chambers  of  the  heart  of  Christ.  Thus,  when 
our  Lord  appeared  to  the  Apostles  upon  the  waters,  all  the 
others  shrank  from  Him,  terrified  ;  and  they  said  to  each  other, 
"  It  is  a  ghost  !  It  is  an  appearance  !"  John  looked,  and  in- 
stantly recognized  his  Master,  and  said  to  Peter :  "  Don't  be 
afraid!  It  is  the  Lord!"  Whereupon,  St.  Jerome  says: — 
"  What  eyes  were  those  of  John,  that  could  see  that  which 
others  could  not  see?  Oh,  it  was  the  eye  of  a  virgin  recogniz- 
ing a  virgin  !"  Solus  virgo  virginem  agnoscit.  So  it  was  that  a 
certain  tacit  privilege  was  granted  to  John,  as  is  seen  in  the 
conduct  of  the  Apostles  themselves.  Peter,  certainly,  was 
honored  above  all  the  others  by  getting  precedence  and  suprem- 
acy ;  by  being  appointed  the  Vicar  and  representative  of  his 
Master ;  in  other  words,  "  the  Head  of  the  Apostles."  Nay, 
more,  the  heart  of  Peter  was  sounded  to  the  very  depths  ">£  its 
capacity  and  of  its  love,  before  Christ  our  Lord  appointed  him 
as  His  representative.  Three  times  did  he  ask  him,  "  Lovest 
thou  Me?"  Again,  in  the  presence  of  John,  "Lovest  thou 
Me,  Peter,  more  than  these?"  More  than  these  ;  more  than  the 
men  who  are  present  before  Me,  and  of  whom  I  speak  to  you. 
'And  Peter  was  confirmed  in  that  hour,  and  rose,  by  Divine  grace, 
to  a  height  in  the  sight  of  his  Divine  Master,  greater  than  any 
ever  attained  by  man.  It  is  not  the  heart  of  the  man  loving 
the  Lord,  but  it  is  the  heart  of  the  Lord  loving  the  man.  So 
Peter  was  called  upon  to  love  his  Lord  more  than  the  others. 
But  the  tenderest  love  of  his  Divine  Master  was  the  privilege 
of  John.  He  was  the  disciple  "whom  Jesus  loved."  And  well 
did  his  fellow-Apostles  know  it.     What  a  privilege  was  not  that 


128  The  Groupings  of  Calvary. 

which  was  given  to  John  at  the  Last  Supper  because  of  hit 
virginal  purity?  There  was  the  Master,  and  there  were  the  dis- 
ciples around  Him.  There  was  the  man  whom  He  had  destined 
to  be  the  first  pope — the  representative  of  His  power,  and  head 
of  His  followers.  Did  Peter  get  the  first  place?  No!  The  first 
place  of  love,  the  place  next  to  the  left  side,  nearest  the  dear 
heart  side,  was  the  privilege  of  John.  And — oh  !  ineffable  dig- 
nity vouchsafed  by  our  Saviour  to  His  virgin  friend ! — the  head 
of  the  disciple  was  laid  upon  the  breast  of  the  Master,  and  the 
human  ear  of  John  heard  the  pulsations  of  the  virginal  heart  of 
Christ,  the  Lord  of  earth  and  heaven  !  Between  those  two,  in 
life,  you  may  easily  see  in  this  and  other  such  traits  recorded  in 
the  Gospel ;  between  these  two — the  Master  and  the  disciple 
whom  He  loved  ;  there  was  a  silent  intercommunion — an  in- 
tensity of  tender  love  of  which  the  other  Apostles  seem  not  to 
have  known.  Out  of  this  very  purity  of  John  sprang  the  love 
of  his  Divine  Lord  and  Master.  It  was  after  His  resurrection 
that  our  Lord  asked  Peter,  "  Dost  thou  love  Me  more  than 
these?"  Before  the  suffering  and  death  of  the  Son  of  God, 
Peter,  not  yet  confirmed  in  love,  wavered  in  his  allegiance  and 
denied  his  Master  ;  John's  love  knew  no  change.  Peter's  love 
had  first  to  be  humbled,  and  then  purified  by  tears,  and  the 
heart  broken  by  contrition  before  he  was  able  to  assert :  "  Lord, 
Thou  knowest  all  things:  Thou  knowest  that  I  love  Thee!" 
But  in  the  love  of  St.  John  we  find  an  undoubting,  an  unchang- 
ing love.  What  his  Master  was  to  him  in  the  hour  of  His 
glory,  the  same  was  He  in  the  hour  of  His  shame.  He  beheld 
his  Lord,  shining  on  the  summit  of  Tabor  on  the  day  of  His 
Transfiguration  ;  yet  he  loved  Him  as  dearly  when  He  beheld 
Him  covered  with  shame  and  confusion  on  the  Cross !  What 
was  the  nature  of  that  love  ?  Oh,  my  friends,  think  what  was 
the  nature  of  that  love?  It  had  taken  possession  of  a  mighty 
but  an  empty  heart.  Mighty  in  its  capacity  of  love  is  the 
heart  of  man — the  heart  of  the  young  man — the  heart  of  the 
ingenious,  talented,  and  enlightened  youth.  Would  you  know 
of  how  much  love  this  heart  is  capable  ?  Behold  it  in  the  saints 
of  the  Catholic  Church.  Behold  it  in  every  man  who  gives  his 
heart  to  God  wholly  and  entirely.  Behold  it  even  in  the  sacri- 
fices that  young  hearts  make  when  they  are  filled  with  merely 
human  love.     Behold  it  in  the  sacrifice  of  life,  of   health,  </ 


The  Groupings  of  Calvary.  129 

everything  which  a  man  has,  which  is  made  upon  the  altar  of 
his  love,  even  when  that  human  love  has  taken  the  base, 
revolting  form  of  impurity.  But  measure,  if  you  can,  the 
ardor  of  pure  love  for  Jesus  Christ.  I  address  the  heart  of  the 
young  man,  and  he  cannot  see  it  !  The  truth  lies  here,  that  the 
most  licentious  and  self-indulgent  sinner  on  the  face  of  the 
earth,  has  never  yet  known,  in  the  indulgence  of  his  wildest  ex- 
cesses, the  full  contentment,  the  complete  enjoyment,  the  mighty 
faculty  of  love  which  is  in  the  heart  of  man,  and  which  God 
alone  can  satisfy. 

Such  was  the  heart  which  our  Lord  called  to  him.  Such  was 
the  heart  of  John.  It  was  a  capacious  heart.  It  was  the  heart 
of  a  young  man.  It  was  empty.  No  human  love  was  there. 
No  previous  affection  came  in  to  cross  or  counteract  the  de- 
signs of  God  in  the  least  degree,  or  to  take  possession  of  the 
remotest  corner,  even,  of  that  heart.  Then,  finding  it  thus 
empty  in  its  purity,  thus  capacious  in  its  nature,  the  Son  of 
God  filled  the  heart  of  the  young  Apostle  with  His  love.  Oh, 
it  was  the  rarest,  the  grandest  friendship  that  ever  existed  on 
this  earth  ;  the  friendship  that  bound  together  two  virgin  hearts 
— the  heart  of  the  beloved  disciple,  John  ;  the  grand  virgin  love 
which  absorbed  John's  affections,  filling  his  young  heart  and  in- 
tellect with  the  beauty  and  the  highest  appreciation  of  his  Lord 
and  Master,  filling  his  senses  with  the  charms  ineffable  pro- 
duced by  the  sight  of  the  face  of  the  Holy  One.  He  looked 
upon  the  beauty  of  that  sacred  and  Divine  humanity  ;  and  he 
saw  with  the  penetrating  eyes  of  the  intellect  the  fullness  of  the 
Divinity  that  flashed  upon  him.  He  had  listened  to  the  words 
of  the  Divine  Master,  and  sweeter  were  they  than  the  music 
which  He  heard  in  heaven,  and  which  he  describes  in  the 
Apocalypse,  where  he  says:  "I  heard  the  sound  of  many 
voices,  and  of  harpers  harping  upon  many  harps."  Far  sweeter 
than  the  echoes  of  heaven  that  descended  into  his  soul  on  the 
Isle  of  Patmos,  was  the  noble,  manly  voice  of  his  Lord  and 
Master — now  pouring  forth  blessings  upon  the  poor — now 
telling  those  who  weep  that  they  shall  one  day  be  comfortcd- 
now  whispering  to  the  widow  of  Nairn,  "  Weep  no  more ;" 
now  telling  the  penitent  Magdalen,  "Thy  sins  aic  forgiven 
thee  because  thou  hast  loved  much!"  now  thundering  in  at 
the  temple  of  Jerusalem,  until  the  very  walls  resounded  to  the 

9 


130  The  Groupings  of  Calvary. 

God-like  voice  of  Him  who  said:  "  It  is  written  that  My  house 
is  a  house  of  prayer,  but  you  have  made  it  a  den  of  thieves ;" 
it  was  still  the  loftiest  music  and  melody — the  harmonious  roll 
of  the  voice  of  God — as  it  fell  upon  the  charmed  ears  of  the 
enraptured  Evangelist — the  young  man  who  followed  his 
Master  and  fed  his  soul  upon  that  Divine  love.  Out  of  this 
love  sprang  that  inseparable  fellowship  that  bound  him  to 
Christ.  Not  for  an  instant  was  he  voluntarily  absent  from  his 
Master's  side.  Not  for  an  instant  did  h.e  separate  himself  from 
the  immediate  society  of  his  Lord.  And  herein  lay  the  secret 
of  his  love ;  for  love,  be  it  human  or  Divine,  craves  for  union, 
and  lives  in  the  sight  and  in  the  conversation  of  the  object  of  its 
affection.  Consequently,  of  all  the  Apostles,  John  was  the  one 
who  was  always  clinging  around  his  Master — always  trying  to 
be  near  him — always  trying  to  catch  the  loving  eyes  of  Christ 
in  every  glance.  This  was  the  light  of  his  brightness — the 
Divine  wisdom  that  animated  him  ! 

How  distinct  is  the  action  of  John,  in  the  hour  of  the  Passion, 
from  that  of  Peter!  Our  divine  Lord  gave  warning" to  Peter; 
"  Peter,"  He  says,  "  before  the  cock  crows  you  will  deny  me 
thrice."  No  wonder  the  Master's  voice  struck  terror  into 
the  heart  of  the  Apostle.  And  yet,  strange  to  say,  it  did  not 
make  him  cautious  or  prudent.  When  our  Lord  was  taken 
prisoner,  the  Evangelist  expressly  tells  us  that  Peter  followed 
Him.  Followed  Him?  Indeed,  he  followed  Him;  but  he  fol- 
lowed Him  afar  off.  "  Petrns  autem  sequebatur  cum  a  longe." 
lie  waited  on  the  outskirts  of  the  crowd.  He  tried  to  hide  him- 
self in  the  darkness  of  the  night.  He  tried  to  conceal  his  features, 
lest  any  man  might  lay  hold  of  him,  and  make  him  a  prisoner, 
as  the  friend  of  the  Redeemer.  He  began  to  be  afraid  of  the 
danger  of  acknowledging  himself  to  be  the  servant  of  such  a 
Master.  He  began  to  think  of  himself,  when  every  thought  of 
his  mind  and  every  energy  of  his  heart  should  have  been  con. 
centrated  upon  his  Lord.  He  followed  Him  ;  but  at  some  dis- 
tance. Ah  !  at  a  good  distance.  John,  on  the  other  hand, 
rushed  to  the  front.  John  wanted  to  be  seen  with  his  Master. 
John  wanted  to  take  the  Master's  hand,  even  when  bound  by 
the  thongs,  that  he  might  receive  the  vivifying  touch  of  contact 
with  Christ.  John  wanted  to  hear  every  word  that  might  be 
said,  whether  it  were  for  or  against  Him.     John  wanted  to  feast 


The  Groupings  of  Calvary.  13! 

his  eyes  upon  every  object  which  engaged  the  attention  of  his 
Lord  and  by  whose  look  it  was  irradiated — a  type,  indeed,  of  a 
class  of  Christian  men,  seeking  the  society  and  presence  of  their 
Master,  and  strengthened  by  that  seeking  and  that  presence. 
He  is  the  type  of  the  man  who  goes  frequently  to  holy  com- 
munion, preparing  himself  by  a  good  confession,  and  so  laying 
the  basis  of  a  sacramental  union  with  God,  that  becomes  a  large 
element  of  his  life — the  man  who  goes  to  the  altar  every  month 
— the  man  who  is  familiar  with  Christ,  and  who  enters  some- 
what into  the  inner  chambers  of  that  sacred  heart  of  infinite 
love;  the  man  who  knows  what  those  few  minutes  of  rapture 
are  which  are  reserved  for  the  pure ;  for  those  who  not  only 
endeavor  to  serve  God,  but  to  serve  Him  lovingly  and  well. 
Those  are  the  men  who  walk  in  the  footsteps  of  John  ;  those 
are  his  representatives.  Peter  is  represented  by  the  man  who 
goes  to  holy  communion  once  or  twice  inthe  year — going,  per- 
haps, once  at  Easter  or  Christmas,  and  then  returning  to  the 
world  again.  God  grant  that  neither  the  world,  nor  the  flesh, 
nor  the  devil  will  take  possession  of  the  days,  or  weeks,  or  years 
of  the  rest  of  his  life  !  he  who  gives — twice  in  the  year,  perhaps 
— an  hour  or  two  to  earnest  communion  with  God,  and  for  all 
the  rest  only  a  passing  consideration,  flashing  momentarily 
across  the  current  of  his  life.  And  what  was  the  consequence  ? 
John  went  up  to  Calvary,  and  took  the  proudest  place  that  ever 
was  given  to  man.  Peter  met,  in  the  outer  hall,  a  little  servant- 
maid,  and  she  said  to  him,  "  Thou  also  wast  with  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth." The  moment  that  the  child's  voice  fell  upon  his  ear,  he  de- 
nied his  Master,  and  he  swore  an  oath  that  he  did  not  know  Him. 
Now  we  come  to  the  third  grand  attribute  of  John ;  and  it  is 
to  this,  my  friends,  that  I  would  call  your  attention  especially. 
Tender  as  the  love  of  this  man  was  for  his  Master — his  friend — 
mark  how  strong  and  how  manly  it  was,  at  the  same  time.  He 
does  not  stand  aside.  He  will  allow  no  soldier,  or  guard, 
or  executioner,  to  thrust  him  aside,  or  put  him  away  from 
his  Master.  He  stands  by  that  Master's  side,  when  lie 
stood  before  His  accusers  in  the  Praetorium  of  Pilate.  He 
comes  out.  John  receives  Him  into  his  arms,  when,  fainting 
with  loss  of  blood,  He  returns,  surrounded  by  soldiers,  from 
the  terrific  scene  of  His  scourging ;  and,  when  the  Cross 
is  laid  upon  the  shoulders  of  the  Redeemer,  with  the  crowd  of 


132  The  Groupings  of  Calvary. 

citizens  around  Him — at  His  right  hand,  so  close  that  He 
might  lean  upon  him,  if  he  would,  is  the  manly  form  of  St.  J  ohn 
the  Evangelist.  Oh,  think  of  the  love  that  was  in  his  heart, 
and  the  depth  of  his  sorrow,  when  he  saw  his  Lord,  his  Mas- 
ter, his  friend,  his  only  love,  reduced  to  so  terrible  a  state 
of  woe,  of  misery,  and  of  weakness  !  This  was  the  condi- 
tion of  our  divine  Lord,  when  they  laid  the  heavy  cross  upon 
His  shoulder.  How  the  Apostle  of  Love  would  have  taken 
that  painful  and  terrible  crown,  with  its  thorns,  from  off  the 
brows  to  which  they  adhered,  and  set  the  thorns  upon  his  own 
head,  if  they  had  only  been  satisfied  to  let  him  bear  the  pains 
and  the  sufferings  of  his  Master  and  his  God !  Oh,  how 
anxious  must  he  have  been  to  take  the  load  that  was  placed 
upon  the  unwilling  shoulders  of  Simon  of  Cyrene !  Oh,  how 
he  must  have  envied  the  man  who  lifted  the  cross  from  off  the 
bleeding  shoulders  of  the  Divine  Victim,  and  set  it  on  his  own 
strong  shoulders,  and  bore  it  along  up  the  steep  side  of  Cal- 
vary !  With  what  gratitude  must  the  Apostle  have  looked 
upon  the  face  of  Veronica,  who,  with  eyes  streaming  with 
tears,  and  on  bended  knees,  upheld  the  cloth  on  which  the 
Saviour  imprinted  the  marks  His  divine  countenance!  Yet,  who 
was  this  man?  who  was  this  man  who  received  the  blow  as  the 
criminal  who  was  about  to  be  executed  ?  Who  is  this  man  who 
takes  the. place  of  shame?  Who  is  this  man  who  is  willing  to 
assume  all  the  opprobrium  and  all  the  penalty  that  follows 
upon  it?  He  is  the  only  one  of  the  Twelve  Apostles  that  is 
publicly  known.  We  read  in  the  gospels  that  the  Apostles 
were  all  poor  men,  taken  out  of  the  crowd  by  our  Lord.  The 
only  one  amongst  them  who  had  made  some  mark,  who  was 
noted,  who  was  remembered  for  something  or  another,  was  St. 
John.  And  by  whom  was  he  known  ?  He  was  known,  says 
the  Evangelist — to  the  high-priest.  He  was  so  well  known  to 
him,  and  to  his  guards,  and  to  his  officers,  and  to  his  fellow- 
priests,  that  when  our  Lord  was  in  the  house  of  Annas,  John 
entered  as  a  matter  of  course  ;  and  when  Peter,  with  the  rest, 
was  shut  out,  all  that  John  had  to  do  was  to  speak  a  word  to 
the  doorkeeper  and  bring  in  Peter.  He  was  well  known  to  the 
chief  magistrates — well  known  to  the  men  in  power— well 
known  to  the  chief  senators.  "  Oh,  John  !  John  !  be  prudent ! 
Remember  that  you  are  a  noted  man,  so  that  you  will  be  set 


The  Groupings  of  Calvary.  133 

down  by  the  men  in  power,  for  shame  perhaps,  or  indignity,  or 
even  death,  if  you  are  seen  with  Jesus  Christ  in  this  hour. 
Consult  your  own  interests.  Don't  be  rash.  There  is  no  know- 
ing what  may  happen  you."  Oh,  this  is  the  language  of  the 
world.  This  is  the  language  which  we  hear  day  after  day. 
"Prudence  and  caution!"  "No  necessity  to  parade  our  re- 
ligion !"  "  No  necessity  to  be  thrusting  our  Catholicity  before 
the  world  !"  "  No  necessity  to  be  constantly  unfurling  the  ban- 
ner on  which  the  Cross  of  Christ  is  depicted — the  Cross  on 
which  He  died  to  save  the  souls  of  men."  "  No  necessity  for 
all  this.  Let  us  go  peacefully  with  the  world !  Let  us  worship 
in  secret.  Let  us  go  on  Sunday  to  Mass  quietly;  and  let  the 
world  know  nothing  about  it !"  Oh,  how  noble  the  answer  of 
him  whom  all  the  world  knew !  How  noble  the  soul  of  him 
who  stood  by  the  Lord,  when  he  knew  he  was  a  noted  man, 
and  that,  sooner  or  later,  his  fidelity  on  that  Good  Friday 
morning  would  bring  him  into  trouble!  Ah,  how  glorious 
the  action  of  the  man  who  knew  he  was  compromising 
himself!  that  he  was  placing  his  character,  his  liberty,  his 
very  life  in  jeopardy!  That  he  was  suffering,  perhaps,  in  the 
tenderest  intimacy  and  friendship  !  That  he  was  losing  him- 
self, perhaps,  in  the  esteem  of  those  worldly  men  who  thought 
they  were  doing  a  wise,  a  proper,  and  a  prudent  thing  when  they 
sent  the  Lord  to  be  crucified.  He  stands  by  his  Master.  He 
says,  in  the  face  of  this  whole  world,  "  Whoever  is  His  enemy, 
I  am  His  friend.  Whatever  is  His  position  to-day,  I  am  His 
creature;  and  I  recognize  Him  as  my  God!"  And  so  he  trod, 
step  by  step,  with  the  fainting  Redeemer,  up  the  rugged  sides 
of  Calvary.  We  know  not  what  words  of  love  and  of  strong  man- 
ly sympathy  he  may  have  poured  into  the  afflicted  ear  of  Christ. 
We  know  not  how  much  the  drooping  humanity  of  our  Lord 
may  have  been  strengthened  and  cheered  in  that  sad  hour  by 
the  presence  of  the  faithful  and  loving  John  !  Have  you  ever 
been  in  great  affliction,  my  friends?  Has  sorrow  ever  come 
upon  you  with  a  crushing  and  an  overwhelming  weight?  Have 
you  ever  lacked  heart  and  power  in  great  difficulty,  and  seen  no 
escape  from  the  crushing  weight  of  anxiety  that  was  breaking 
your  heart?  Do  you  not  know  what  it  is  to  have  even  one 
friend — one  friend  on  whom  you  can  rely  with  perfect  and  im- 
plicit confidence — one  friend  who,  you  know,  believes  in  you 


134  The  Groupings  of  Calvary. 

and  loves  you,  and  whose  love  is  as  strong  as  his  life  ?  One 
friend  who,  you  know,  will  uphold  you  even  though  the  whole 
world  be  against  you  ?  Such  was  the  comfort,  such  the  conso- 
lation that  it  was  the  Evangelist's  privilege  to  pay  to  our  Lord 
on  Calvary.  No  human  prudence  of  argument  dissuaded  him. 
He  thought  it — and  he  thought  rightly — the  supreme  of  wisdom 
to  defy,  to  despise,  and  to  trample  upon  the  world,  when  that 
world  was  crucifying  his  Lord  and  Master.  Highest  type  of 
the  man,  saying  from  out  the  depths  of  his  own  conscience, 
"  I  am  above  the  world  !"  Let  every  man  ask  himself  this 
night,  and  answer  the  question  to  his  own  soul:  "  Do  I  imitate 
the  purity,  do  I  imitate  the  love,  do  I  imitate  the  courage  or 
the  bravery  of  this  man,  of  whom  it  is  said  that  he  was  "  the 
disciple  whom  Jesus  loved?"  He  got  this  reward.  He  got  this 
reward  exceeding  great.  Ah,  how  little  did  he  know — great  as 
his  love  was — how  little  did  he  know  the  gift  that  was  in  store 
for  him — and  that  should  be  given  him  by  his  dying  Lord  ! 
Little  did  he  know  of  the  crowning  glory  that  was  reserved  to 
him  at  the  foot  of  the  Cross.  How  his  heart  must  have 
throbbed  within  him  with  the  liveliest  emotions  of  delight, 
mingled  in  a  stormy  confusion  with  the  greatness  of  his  sorrow, 
when,  from  the  lips  of  his  dying  Master,  he  received  the  com- 
mand :  "  Son,  behold  thy  Mother  !" — and  with  eyes  dimmed  with 
the  tears  of  anguish  and  of  love,  did  he  cast  his  most  pure,  most 
loving,  and  most  reverential  glance  upon  the  forlorn  Mother  of 
the  dying  Son !  What  was  his  ecstasy  when  he  heard  the  voice 
of  the  dying  Master  say  to  Mary:  "  Oh,  mother,  look  to  John, 
my  brother,  my  lover,  my  friend  !  Take  him  for  thy  son  !"  To 
John  he  says :  "  Son,  I  am  going  away,  I  am  leaving  this  wo- 
man the  most  desolate  of  all  creatures  that  ever  walked  the 
earth.  True,  she  is  to  me  the  dearest  object  in  heaven  or  on 
earth.  Friend,  I  have  nothing  that  I  love  so  much!  Friend, 
there  is  no  one  for  whom  I  have  so  much  love  as  I  have  for  her ! 
And  to  you  do  I  leave  her!  Take  her  as  your  mother,  Oh, 
dearly  beloved  !"  John  advanced  one  step — the  type  and  the 
prototype  of  the  new  man  redeemed  by  our  Lord — the  man 
whose  glory  it  was  to  be — that  he  was  Mary's  Son  !  He  ad- 
vances a  step  until  he  comes  right  in  front  of  his  dying  Lord, 
and  he  approaches  Mary  the  Mother,  in  the  midst  of  her  sor- 
row, and  flings  himself  into  her  loving  arms.     And  the  newly- 


The  Grotipings  of  Calvary.  1 35 

found  son  embraces  his  heavenly  mother,  whilst  from  the  cruci- 
fied Lord  the  drops  of  blood  fall  down  upon  them  and  cement 
the  union  between  His  Church  and  His  Holy  Mother,  in 
which  the  mystery  of  the  Incarnation  is  made  perfect  by  com- 
pletest  adoption  and  brotherhood  with  the  Son  of  God. 

The  scene  at  Calvary  I  will  not  touch  upon,  or  describe.  The 
slowly  passing  minutes  of  pain,  of  anguish,  and  of  agony  that 
stretched  out  these  three  terrible  hours  of  incessant  suffering — 
of  these  I  will  not  speak.  But,  when  the  scene  was  over ; 
when  the  Lord  of  Glory  and  of  Love  sent  forth  His  last  cry, 
when  the  terrified  heart  of  the  Virgin  throbbed  with  alarm  as 
she  saw  the  centurion  draw  back  his  terrible  lance  and  thrust  it 
through  the  side  of  her  Divine  Son  ;  when  all  this  was  over 
and  when  our  Lord  was  taken  down  from  the  Cross,  and  his 
body  placed  in  Mary's  arms — after  she  had  washed  away  the 
blood-stains  with  her  tears — after  she  had  taken  off  the  crown 
of  thorns  from  His  brow,  and  when  they  had  laid  Him  in  the 
tomb — the  desolate  mother  put  her  hands  into  those  of  her 
newly-found  child,  St.  John,  and  with  him  returned  to  Jerusa- 
lem. The  glorious  title  of  "  The  Child  of  Mary  "  was  now  his  : 
and  with  this  precious  gift  of  the  dying  Redeemer  he  rejoiced 
in  Mary's  society  and  in  Mary's  love.  The  Virgin  was  then, 
according  to  tradition,  in  her  forty-ninth  year.  During  the 
twelve  years  that  she  survived  with  John,  she  was  mostly  in 
Jerusalem,  whilst  he  preached  in  Ephesus,  one  of  the  cities  of 
Asia  Minor,  and  founded  there  a  church,  and  held  the  chair  as 
its  first  Apostle  and  Bishop.  He  founded  a  church  at  Philippi, 
and  a  church  at  Thessalonica,  and  many  of  the  churches  in  Asi-a 
Minor.  His  whole  life,  for  seventy  years  after  the  death  of  his 
Divine  Lord,  was  spent  in  the  propagation  of  the  Gospel  and  in 
the  establishing  of  the  Church.  But  for  twelve  years  more  the 
Virgin  Mother  was  with  him,  in  his  house,  tenderly  surrounding 
him  with  every  comfort  that  her  care  could  supply.  Oh,  think 
of  the  raptures  of  this  household  !  Every  glance  of  her  virginal 
eyes  upon  him  reminded  her  of  Him  who  was  gone — for  John 
was  like  his  Divine  Master.  It  was  that  wonderful  resemblance 
to  Christ  which  the  highest  form  of  grace  brings  out  in  the  man. 
Picture  to  yourselves,  if  you  can,  that  life  at  Ephesus,  when  the 
Apostle,  worn  down  by  his  apostolic  preaching,  fatigued  and 
wearied  from  his  constantly  proclaiming  the  victory  and  the  love 


1 3b  The  Groupings  of  Calvary. 

of  the  Redeemer,  returned  to  the  house  and  sat  down,  whilst 
Mary  with  her  tender  hand  wiped  the  sweat  from  his  brow,  and 
these  two,  sitting  together,  spoke  of  the  Lord,  and  of  the  mys- 
teries of  the  life  in  Nazareth ;  and  from  Mary's  lips  he  heard  of 
the  mysteries  of  the  thirty  years  of  love  in  the  lowly  house  of 
Nazareth,  and  of  how  Joseph  had  died  and  Jesus  had  labored 
for  her  in  his  stead.  From  Mary's  lips  he  heard  the  secrets — 
the  wonderful  secrets  of  her  Divine  Son  ;  until,  filled  with  in- 
spiration, and  rising  to  the  grandest  and  most  glorious  heights 
of  divinely  inspired  thought,  he  proclaimed  the  Gospel  that 
begins  with  the  wonderful  words,  "  In  the  beginning  was  the 
Word,"  denoting  and  pointing  back  to  the  eternity  of  the  Son 
of  God.  Picture  to  yourselves,  if  you  can,  how  Mary  poured 
out  to  John,  years  after  the  death  of  our  Lord,  her  words  of 
gratitude  for  the  care  with  which  he  surrounded  her,  and  of  all 
her  gratitude  to  him  for  all  that  he  had  done  in  consoling  and 
upholding  her  Divine  Child  in  the  hour  of  His  sorrow  !  Oh,  this 
surpasses  all  contemplation.  Next  to  that  mystery  of  Divine 
Love,  the  life  in  Nazareth  with  her  own  Child,  comes  the  life 
she  lives  in  Ephesus  with  her  second,  her  adopted  son,  St.  John 
the  Evangelist.  He  passed  to  heaven,  first  amongst  the  virgins, 
says  St.  Peter  Damen, — first  in  glory  as  first  in  love,  enshrined 
to-day  in  the  brightest  light  that  surrounds  the  virgin  choirs  of 
heaven  !  Now,  now  he  sings  the  songs  of  angelic  joy  and  angelic 
love  ;  and  he  leaves  to  you  and  to  me — as  he  stands,  and  as 
we  contemplate  him  upon  the  Hill  of  Calvary — the  grand  and 
the  instructive  lesson  of  how  the  Christian  man  is  to  behave 
toward  his  Lord  and  his  God  ;  living  in  Christian  purity — in  the 
Christ-given  strength  of  divine  love — and  in  that  glorious  world- 
despising  assertion  of  the  divinity  and  of  the  love  of  Jesus 
Christ;  which,  trampling  under  foot  all  mere  human  respect, 
lives  and  glories  in  the  friendship  of  God,  and  in  the  possession 
of  His  holy  faith  and  the  practice  of  His  holy  religion — not 
blushing  for  Him  before  man  ;  and  thus  gaining  the  reward  of 
Him  who  says:  "And  he  that  confesses  Me  before  men,  the 
same  will  I  confess  before  My  Father  in  heaven." 


CHRIST    ON    CALVARY." 


[Preached  on  Good  Friday  evening,  March  29th,  1S72,  in  the  Dominican  Church, 
£*«w  York,  to  the  largest  audience  ever  assembled  within  its  walls.  Not  only  was  tho 
church  packed  with  the  earnest  multitude  ;  outside  the  doors  were  congregated  hun- 
dreds who  could  not  gain  admission,  yet  lingered  in  the  hope  of  catching  even  the 
echoes  of  the  voice  of  the  preacher.] 

"  All  you  that  pass  this  way,  come  and  see,  if  there  be  any  sorrow  like  unto  my 
•orrow." 

HESE  words  are  found  in  the  Lamentations  of  the 
prophet  Jeremiah.  There  was  a  festival,  dearly  be- 
loved brethren,  ordained  by  the  Almighty  God,  for  the 
tenth  day  of  the  seventh  month  of  the  Jewish  year ; 
and  this  festival  was  called  the  "  Day  of  Atonement."  Now, 
amongst  the  commandments  that  the  Almighty  God  gave  con- 
cerning the  "  Day  of  Atonement,"  there  was  this  remarkable 
one :  "  Every  soul,"  said  the  Lord,  "  that  shall  not  be  afflicted 
on  that  day,  shall  perish  from  out  the  land."  The  command- 
ment that  He  gave  them  was  a  commandment  of  sorrow,  because 
it  was  the  day  of  the  atonement.  The  day  of  the  Christian  atone- 
ment is  come — the  day  of  the  mighty  sacrifice  by  which  the 
world  was  redeemed.  And  if,  at  other  seasons,  we  are  told  to 
rejoice,  in  the  words  of  the  Scripture,  "  rejoice  in  the  Lord  ;  I 
say  to  you  again,  rejoice,"  to-day,  with  our  holy  mother,  the 
Church,  we  must  put  off  the  garments  of  joy,  and  clothe  our- 
selves in  the  robes  of  sorrow.  And  now,  before  we  enter  upon 
the  consideration  of  the  terrible  sufferings  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ — all  that  he  endured  for  our  salvation — it  is  necessary, 
my  dearly  beloved  brethren,  that  we  should  turn  our  thoughts 
to  the  victim  whom  we  contemplate  this  night,  dying  for  our 
sins.  That  victim  was  our  Lord  and  Saviour,  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Son  of  God.     When  the  Almighty  God,  after   the  first   two 


138  Christ  on  Calvary. 

thousand  years  of  the  world's  history,  resolved  to  destroy 
the  whole  race  of  mankind,  on  account  of  their  sins,  He  flooded 
the  earth ;  and,  in  that  universal  ruin,  He  wiped  out  the  sin  by 
destroying  the  sinners.  Now,  in  that  early  hour  of  God's  first 
terrible  visitation,  the  water  that  overwhelmed  the  whole  world, 
and  destroyed  all  mankind,  came  from  three  sources.  First  of 
all,  we  are  told,  that  God,  with  His  own  hand,  drew  back  the 
bolts  of  heaven,  and  rained  down  water  from  heaven  upon  the 
earth.  Secondly,  we  are  told,  that  all  the  secret  springs  and 
fountains  that  were  in  the  bosom  of  the  earth  itself,  burst  and 
came  forth — "  the  fountains  of  the  great  abyss  burst  forth,"  says 
Holy  Writ.  Thirdly,  we  are  told,  that  the  great  ocean  itself 
overflowed  its  shores  and  its  banks,  and  the  sea  uprose  until  the 
waters  covered  the  mountain-tops.  In  like  manner,  dearly 
beloved  brethren,  in  the  inundation,  the  deluge  of  suffering  and 
sorrow  that  came  upon  the  Son  of  God,  made  man,  we  find  that 
the  flood  burst  forth  from  three  distinct  sources.  First  of  all,  from 
heaven,  the  Eternal  Father  sending  down  the  merciless  hand  of 
justice,  to  strike  His  own  Divine  Son.  Secondly,  from  Christ 
our  Lord  himself.  As  from  the  hidden  fountains  of  the  earth, 
sending  forth  their  springs,  so,  from  amid  the  very  heart  and 
soul  of  Jesus  Christ — from  the  very  nature  of  His  being 
— do  we  gather  the  greatness  of  His  suffering.  Thirdly, 
from  the  sea  rising — that  is  to  say,  from  the  malice  and 
wickedness  of  man.  Behold,  then,  the  three  several  sources 
of  all  the  sufferings  that  we  are  about  to  contemplate. 
A  just  and  angry  God  in  heaven  ;  a  most  pure  and  holy  and 
loving  Man-God  upon  earth,  having  to  endure  all  that  hell 
could  produce  of  most  wicked  and  most  demoniac  rage  against 
Him.  God's  justice  rose  up — for,  remember,  God  was  angry 
on  this  Good  Friday — the  Eternal  Father  rose  up  in  heaven,  in 
all  His  power — He  rose  up  in  all  His  justice.  Before  Him  was 
a  victim  for  all  the  sins  that  ever  had  been  committed  ;  before 
Him  was  the  victim  of  a  fallen  race ;  before  Him,  in  the  very 
person  of  Jesus  Christ  Himself,  were  represented  the  accumu- 
lated sins  of  all  the  race  of  mankind.  Hitherto,  we  read  in 
the  Gospel,  that,  when  the  Father  from  heaven  looked  down 
upon  His  own  Divine  Child  upon  the  earth,  He  was  accus- 
tomed to  send  forth  His  voice  in  such  language  as  this:  '  This 
is  my  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased."     Hitherto,  no 


Christ  on  Calvary.  139 

sin,  no  deformity,  no  vileness  was  there,  but  the  beauty  of 
heaven  itself  in  that  fairest  form  of  human  body — in  that 
beautiful  soul,  and  in  the  fullness  of  the  divinity  that  dwelt  in 
Jesus  Christ.  Well  might  the  Father  exclaim:  "This  is  my 
beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased  !"  But,  to-day — oh, 
to-day !  the  sight  of  the  beloved  Son  excites  no  pleasure  in  the 
Father's  eyes — brings  forth  no  word  of  consolation  or  of  love 
from  the  Father's  lips.  And  why?  Because  the  all-holy  and 
all-beloved  Son  of  God,  on  this  Good  Friday,  took  upon  Him 
the  garment  of  our  sins — of  all  that  His  Father  detested  upon 
this  earth  ;  all  that  ever  raised  the  quick  anger  of  the  Eternal 
God  ;  all  that  ever  made  Him  put  forth  His  arm,  strong  in 
judgment  and  in  vengeance — all  this  is  concentrated  upon  the 
sacred  person  of  Him  who  became  the  victim  for  the  sins  of 
men.  How  fair  He  seems  to  us,  when  we  look  up  to  that 
beautiful  figure  of  Jesus — how  fair  He  seemed  to  His  Virgin 
Mother,  even  when  no  beauty  or  comeliness  was  left  in  Him — 
how  fair  He  seemed  to  the  Magdalen,  again,  who  saw  Him 
robed  in  His  own  crimson  blood.  The  Father  in  heaven  saw 
no  beauty,  no  fairness  in  His  Divine  Son,  in  that  hour;  He 
only  saw  in  Him  and  on  Him  all  the  sins  of  mankind,  which 
He  took  upon  Himself  that  He  might  become  for  us  a  Saviour. 
Picture  to  yourselves,  therefore,  first,  this  mighty  fountain  of 
divine  wrath  that  was  poured  out  upon  the  Lord  !  It  was  the 
Father's  hand — the  hand  of  the  Father's  justice — outstretched 
to  assert  His  rights,  to  restore  to  Himself  the  honor  and  the 
glory  of  which  the  sins  of  all  men,  in  all  ages,  in  all  climes,  had 
deprived  Him.  Picture  to  yourselves  that  terrible  hand  of  God 
drawing  back  the  bolts  of  heaven,  and  letting  out  on  His  own 
Divine  Son  the  fury  of  this  wrath  that  was  pent  up  for  four 
thousand  years  !  We  stand  stricken  with  fear  in  the  contem- 
plation of  the  anger  of  God,  in  the  first  great  punishment  of 
sin,  the  universal  deluge.  All  the  sins  that  in  every  age  roused 
the  Father's  anger  were  actually  visible  to  the  Father's  eyes  on 
the  person  of  His  Divine  Son.  We  stand  astonished  and 
frightened  when  we  see,  with  the  eyes  of  faith  and  of  revelation, 
the  living  fire  descending  from  heaven  upon  Sodom  and  Go- 
morrha;  the  balls  of  fire  floating  in  the  air,  thick  as  the  de- 
scending flakes  in  the  snowstorm  ;  the  hissing  of  the  flames  as 
they  came  rushing  down  from  heaven,  like  the  hail  that  comes 


140  Christ  on  Calvary. 

down  in  the  hailstorm  ;  the  roaring  of  these  flames,  as  they 
filled  the  atmosphere ;  the  terrible,  lurid  light  of  them ;  the 
shrieks  of  the  people,  who  are  being  burned  up  alive ;  the 
lowing  of  the  tortured  beasts  in  the  fields  ;  the  birds  of  the  air 
falling,  and  sending  forth  their  plaintive  voices,  as  they  fall  to 
earth,  their  plumage  scorched  and  burned.  All  the  sins  that 
Almighty  God,  in  heaven,  saw  in  that  hour  of  His  wrath,  when 
he  rained  down  fire — all  these  did  He  see,  on  this  Good 
Friday  morning,  upon  His  own  Divine  and  adorable  Son.  All 
the  sins  that  ever  man  committed  were  upon  Him,  in  the  hour 
of  His  humiliation  and  of  His  agony,  because  He  was  truly 
man ;  because  He  was  a  voluntary  victim  for  our  sins ;  be- 
cause He  stepped  in  between  our  nature,  that  was  to  be  de- 
stroyed, and  the  avenging  hand  of  the  Father,  lifted  for  our 
destruction ;  and  these  sins  upon  Him  became  an  argument  to 
make  the  Almighty  God  in  heaven  forget,  in  that  hour,  every 
attribute  of  His  mercy,  and  put  forth  against  His  Son  all  the 
omnipotence  of  His  justice.  Consider  it  well ;  let  it  enter  into 
your  minds — the  strokes  of  the  divine  vengeance  that  would 
have  ruined  you  and  me,  and  sunk  us  into  hell  for  all  eternity, 
were  rained  by  the  unsparing  hand  of  omnipotence,  in  that 
hour,  upon  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

The  second  fountain  and  source  from  which  came  forth  the  del- 
uge of  His  sorrow  and  His  suffering,  was  His  own  divine  heart, 
and  His  own  immaculate  nature.  For,  remember,  He  was  as  truly 
man  as  He  was  God.  From  the  moment  Mary  received  the 
Eternal  Word  into  her  womb,  from  that  moment  Christ,  the 
Second  Person  of  the  Blessed  Trinity,  was  as  truly  man  as  He 
was  God  ;  and  in  that  hour  of  His  Incarnation,  a  human  body 
and  a  human  soul  were  created  for  Him.  Now,  first  of  all, 
that  human  soul  that  he  took  was  the  purest  and  most  perfect 
that  God  could  make — perfect  in  every  natural  perfection — in 
the  quickness  and  comprehensiveness  of  its  intelligence — in  the 
large  capacity  for  love  in  its  human  heart — in  the  great  depth 
of  its  generosity  and  exalted  human  spirit.  Nay,  more,  the 
very  body  in  which  that  blessed  soul  was  enshrined  was  so 
formed  that  it  was  the  most  perfect  body  that  was  ever  given  to 
man.  Now,  the  perfection  of  the  body  in  man  lies  in  a  deli- 
cate organization — in  the  extreme  delicacy  of  fibre,  muscle,  and 
nerve ;  because  they  make  it  a  fitting  instrument  in  order  tha* 


Christ  on  Calvary.  141 

the  soul  within  may  inspire  it.  The  more  perfect,  therefore, 
the  human  being  is,  the  more  sensitive  is  he  to  shame,  the 
more  deeply  does  he  feel  degradation,  the  more  quickly  do  dis- 
honor  and  humiliation,  like  a  two-edged  sword,  pierce  the 
spirit.  Nay,  the  more  sensitive  he  is  to  pain,  the  more  does  he 
shrink  away  naturally  from  that  which  causes  pain  ;  and  that  which 
would  be  pain  to  a  grosser  organization  is  actual  agony,  is  actual 
torment,  to  the  perfect  man,  formed  with  such  a  soul  that  at  the 
very  touch  of  his  body  the  sensitive  soul  is  made  cognizant  of 
pleasure  and  of  pain,  of  joy  and  of  sorrow.  What  follows  from 
this?  St.  Bonaventure,  in  his  "Life  of  Christ,"  tells  us  that 
so  delicate  was  the  sacred  and  most  perfect  body  of  our  Lord, 
that  even  the  palm  of  His  hand  or  the  sole  of  His  foot  was 
more  sensitive  than  the  inner  pupil  of  the  eye  of  any  ordinary 
man  ;  that  even  the  least  touch  caused  him  pain  ;  that  every 
ruder  air  that  visited  that  divine  face  brought  to  Him  a  sense 
of  exquisite  pain  that  ordinary  men  could  scarcely  experience. 
Add  to  this  that  in  Him  was  the  fullness  of  the  Godhead, 
realizing  all  that  was  beautiful  on  earth  ;  realizing,  with  infinite 
capacity,  the  enormity  of  sin  ;  realizing  every  evil  that  ever  fell 
upon  nature  in  making  it  accessible  to  sin  ;  and,  above  all, 
taking  in,  to  the  full  extent  of  its  eternal  duration,  the  curse, 
the  reprobation,  and  damnation  that  falls  upon  the  wicked — oh, 
how  many  sources  of  sorrow  are  here?  Here  is  the  heart  of 
the  man — Jesus  Christ — here  is  the  fullness  of  the  infinite  sanc- 
tity of  God — here,  the  infinite  horror  that  God  has  for  sin. 
For  this  man  is  God !  Here,  therefore,  is  at  once  the  indigna- 
tion, the  infinite  repugnance,  the  actual  sense  of  horror  and  de- 
testation which,  amounting  to  an  infinite,  passionate  repug- 
nance, absorbed  the  whole  nature  of  Jesus  Christ  in  one  act  of 
violence  against  that  which  is  come  upon  Him.  Now,  every 
single  sin  committed  in  this  world  comes  and  actually  effects, 
as  it  were,  its  lodgment  in  the  soul  and  spirit  of  Jesus.  At 
other  times,  He  may  rest,  as  He  did  rest,  in  the  Virgin's  arms 
— for  she  was  sinless  ;  at  other  times  He  may  allow  sin  and  the 
sinner  to  come  to  His  feet  and  touch  Him  ;  but,  by  that  very 
touch,  she  was  made  as  pure  as  an  angel  of  God.  But,  to-day, 
this  infinitely  holy  heart — this  infinitely  tender  heart,  must  open 
itself  to  receive — no  longer  simply  to  purify,  but  to  assume  and 
atone  for  all  the  sins  of  the  world. 


142  Christ  on  Calvary. 

The  third  great  source  of  His  suffering  was  the  rage  and  the  ma- 
lice of  men.  They  tore  that  sacred  body  ;  they  forgot  every  instinct 
of  humanity;  they  forgot  every  dictate,  every  ordinance  of  the 
old  law,  to  lend  to  their  outrages  all  the  fury  of  hell,  when  they 
fell  upon  Him,  as  the  Scripture  says,  "  Like  hungry  dogs  of 
chase  upon  their  prey."  He  is  now  approaching  the  last  sad 
day  of  His  existence ;  He  is  now  about  to  close  His  life  in  suffer- 
ings which  I  shall  endeavor  to  put  before  you.  But,  remember, 
that  this  Good  Friday,  with  all  its  terrors,  is  but  the  end  of  a 
life  of  thirty-three  years  of  agony  and  of  suffering  !  From  the 
moment  when  the  Word  was  made  flesh  in  Mary's  womb,  from 
the  moment  when  the  Eternal  God  became  man,  even  before 
He  was  born,  the  cross,  the  thorny  crown,  and  all  the  horrors 
that  were  accomplished  on  Calvary  were  steadily  before  the  eyes 
of  Jesus.  The  Infant  in  Bethlehem  saw  them  ;  the  Child  in 
Nazareth  saw  them  ;  the  Young  Man,  toiling  to  support  His 
mother,  saw  them ;  the  Preacher  on  the  mountain-side  beheld 
them.  Never,  for  a  single  instant,  were  the  horrors  that  were 
fulfilled  on  Good  Friday  morning  absent  from  the  mind  or  the 
contemplation  of  Jesus  Christ.  Oh,  dearly  beloved  brethren, 
well  did  the  Psalmist  say  of  Him,  "  My  grief  and  my  sorrow  is 
always  before  me ;"  well  the  Psalmist  said,  "  I  have,  during  my 
whole  life,  walked  in  sorrow;  I  was  scourged  the  whole  day !" 
That  day  was  the  thirty-three  years  of  His  mortal  life.  Picture 
to  yourselves  what  that  life  of  grief  must  have  been.  There  was 
the  Almighty  God  in  the  midst  of  men,  hearing  their  blasphe- 
mies, beholding  their  infamous  actions,  fixing  His  all-pure  and 
all-holy  eyes  on  their  licentiousness,  their  ambition,  their  avarice, 
their  dishonesty,  their  impurity.  And  so  the  very  presence  of 
those  He  came  to  redeem  was  a  constant  source  of  grief  to  Jesus 
Christ.  Moreover,  He  knew  well  that  He  came  into  the  world  to 
suffer,  and  only  to  suffer.  Every  other  being  created  into  this  world 
was  created  for  some  joy  or  other.  There  is  not,  even  in  hell,  a 
creature  whom  Almighty  God  intended,  in  creating,  for  a  life 
and  an  eternity  of  misery  ;  if  they  are  there,  they  are  there  by 
their  own  act,  not  by  the  act  of  God.  Not  so  with  Christ.  His 
sacred  body  was  formed  for  the  express  and  sole  purpose  that  it 
might  be  the  victim  for  the  sins  of  man,  and  the  sacrifice  for  the 
world's  redemption.  "  Sacrifice  and  oblation,"  He  said,  "  Thou 
wouldst  not,  O  God  :  but  Thou  hast  prepared  a  body  for  me.' 


Christ  on  Calvary.  143 

"  Coming  into  the  world,"  says  St.  Paul,  "  He  proclaimed,  '  for 
this  I  am  come,  that  I  may  do  Thy  will,  O  Father.'  "  The  Fa- 
ther's will  was  that  He  should  suffer ;  and  for  this  was  He  created. 
Therefore,  as  He  was  made  for  suffering — as  that  body  was 
given  to  Him  for  no  purpose  of  joy,  but  only  of  suffering,  expia- 
tion, and  of  sorrow — therefore  it  was  that  God  made  Him  capa- 
ble of  a  sorrow  equal  to  the  remission  He  was  about  to  grant. 
That  was  infinite  sorrow. 

And  now,  dearly  beloved,  having  considered  these  things,  we 
come  to  contemplate  that  which  was  always  before  the  mind  of 
Christ — that  from  which  He  knew  there  was  no  escape — that 
which  was  before  Him  really,  not  as  the  future  is  before  us, 
when  we  anticipate  it  and  fear  it,  but  it  comes  indistinctly  and 
confusedly  before  the  mind ;  not  so  with  Christ :  every  single 
detail  of  His  Passion,  every  sorrow  that  was  to  fall -upon  Him, 
every  indignity  that  was  to  be  put  upon  His  body — all,  in  the 
full  clearness  of  their  details,  were  before  the  eyes  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  for  the  thirty-three  years  of  His  life. 

As  the  sun  was  sloping  down  towards  the  western  horizon  on 
the  evening  of  the  vigil  of  the  Pasch,  beheld  our  divine  Lord 
with  His  Apostles  around  Him  ;  and  there,  seated  in  the  midst 
of  them,  He  fulfilled  the  last  precept  of  the  law,  in  eating  the 
Paschal  lamb  ;  and  (as  we  saw  last  evening)  He  then  changed 
the  bread  and  wine  into  His  own  Body  and  Blood,  and  fed  His 
Apostles  with  that  of  which  the  Paschal  lamb  was  but  a  figure 
and  a  promise.  Now,  they  are  about  to  separate  in  this  world. 
Now,  the  greatest  act  of  the  charity  of  God  has  been  performed. 
Now,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  living  and  palpitating  in  the 
heart  of  each  and  every  one  of  these  twelve.  Now — horror  of 
horrors  ! — He  is  gone  into  the  heart  of  Judas  !  Arising  from  the 
table,  our  Lord  took  with  Him  Peter,  and  James,  and  John,  and 
He  turned  calmly  and  deliberately  to  enter  the  Red  Sea  of  His 
Passion,  and  to  wade  through  His  own  blood,  until  He  landed 
upon  the  opposite  shore  of  pardon  and  mercy  and  grace,  and 
brought  with  Him,  in  His  own  sacred  humanity,  the  whole 
human  race.  Calmly,  deliberately,  taking  His  three  friends  with 
Him,  He  went  out  from  the  supper-hall,  as  the  shades  of  even- 
ing were  deepening  into  night,  and  He  walked  outside  the  walls 
of  Jerusalem,  where  there  was  a  garden  full  of  olive-trees,  that 
was  called  Gethsemanc.     The  Lord  Jesus  was  accustomed  to  go 


144  Christ  on  Calvary. 

there  to  pray.  Many  an  evening  had  He  knelt  within  those 
groves ;  many  a  night  had  He  spent  under  the  shade  of  these 
trees,  filling  the  silent  place  with  the  voice  of  His  cries  and 
prayer,  before  the  Lord,  His  Father,  to  obtain  pardon  and  mercy 
for  mankind.  Now,  he  goes  there,  now,  for  the  last  time  ;  and 
as  He  is  approaching — as  soon  as  ever  He  catches  sight  of  the 
garden— as  soon  as  the  familiar  olives  present  themselves  to  His 
eyes,  He  sees— what  Peter,  and  James,  and  John  did  not  see— 
He  sees  there,  in  that  dark  garden,  the  mighty  array— the 
mighty,  tremendous  array  of  all  the  sins  that  ever  were  committed 
in  this  world,  as  if  they  had  taken  the  bodily  form  of  demons 
of  hell.  There  they  were  now,  waiting  silently,  fearfully,  with 
eyes  glaring  with  infernal  rage ;  and  He  saw  them.  And 
amongst  them  was  He,  the  Lord  God,  to  go  ?  Amongst  them 
must  He  go  ?  No  wonder  that  the  moment  He  caught  sight 
of  that  garden,  He  started  back,  and  turning  to  the  three  Apos- 
tles, He  said  :  "  Stand  by  Me  now,  for  My  soul  is  sorrowful 
unto  death."  And,  leaning  upon  the  virgin  bosom  of  John, 
who  was  astonished  at  this  sudden  and  awful  trial  of  his  Master, 
He  murmured  unto  him,  "My  soul  is  sorrowful  unto  death! 
Stand  by  Me,"  He  says,  "  and  watch  with  Me,  and  pray!"  The 
man — the  man,  proving  His  humanity,  which  belonged  to  Him 
as  truly  as  His  divinity ;  the  man,  turning  to  and  clinging  to 
His  friends — gathering  them  around  Him  at  that  terrible  mo- 
ment when  He  was  about  to  face  His  enemies,  He  cries,  "  Stand 
by  me  !  stand  by  me  !  and  support  me,  and  watch,  and  pray 
with  me !"  And  then,  leaving  them,  alone  He  enters  the  gloomy 
place.  Summoning  all  the  courage  of  God — summoning  to  His 
aid  all  the  infinite  resources  of  His  love — summoning  the  great 
thought  that  if  He  was  about  to  be  destroyed,  mankind  was 
to  be  saved,  He  dashes  fearlessly  into  the  depths  of  Geth- 
semane  ;  and  when  He  was  as  far  from  His  Apostles  as  a  man 
could  throw  a  stone,  there,  in  the  dark  depths  of  the  forest,  the 
Lord  Jesus  knelt  down  and  prayed.  What  was  His  prayer? 
Oh,  that  army  of  sins  was  closing  around  Him  !  Oh,  the 
breath  of  hell  was  on  His  face  !  There  did  He  see  the  busy 
demons  marshalling  their  forces  —  drawing  closer  and  closer 
to  Him  all  the  iniquities  of  men.  "Oh,  Father!"  He  cries 
— "  Oh,  Father,  if  it  be  possible,  let  this  chalice  pass  away 
from  me  !"      But  he  immediately  added — "  Not  My  will  but 


Christ  on  Calvary.  145 

Thine  be  done?"  Then  turning — for  the  Father's  will  was 
indicated  to  Him  in  the  voice  from  heaven,  with  the  first  tone 
of  anger  upon  it,  the  first  word  of  anger  that  Jesus  ever  heard 
from  His  Father's  lips,  saying:  "  It  is  My  will  to  strike  Thee! 
Go  !"  He  turned  ;  He  bared  His  innocent  bosom  ;  He  put  out 
His  sinless  hands,  and,  turning  to  all  the  powers  of  hell,  al- 
lowed the  ocean-wave  of  sin  to  flow  in  upon  Him  and  over- 
whelm Him.  The  lusts  and  wickedness  of  men  before  the 
flood,  the  impurities  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrha,  the  idolatries 
of  the  nations,  the  ingratitude  of  Israel — all  the  sins  that  ever 
appeared  under  the  eyes  of  God's  anger — all — all ! — like  the 
waves  of  the  ocean,  coming  in  and  falling  upon  a  solitary  man 
who  kneels  alone  on  the  shore — all  fell  upon  Jesus  Christ.  He 
looks  upon  Himself,  and  He  scarcely  recognizes  Himself  now 
Are  these  the  hands  of  the  Son  of  God,  scarcely  daring  to  up- 
lift themselves  in  prayer,  for  they  are  red  with  ten  thousand 
deeds  of  blood?  Is  this  the  Heart  of  Jesus,  frozen  up  with 
unbelief,  as  if  He  felt  what  He  could  not  feel — that  He  was  the 
personal  enemy  of  God  ?  Is  this  the  sacred  soul  of  Jesus  Christ, 
darkened  for  the  moment  with  the  errors  and  the  adulteries  of 
the  whole  world?  In  the  halls  of  His  memory  nothing  but  the 
hideous  figures  of  sin ! — desolation,  broken  hearts,  weeping 
eyes,  cries  of  despair,  dire  blasphemies  ; — these  are  the  things 
He  sees  within  Himself;  that  He  hears  in  His  ears!  It  is  a 
world  of  sin  around  Him.  It  is  a  raging  of  demons  about  Him. 
It  is  as  if  sin  entered  into  His  blood.  Oh,  God  !  He  bears  it 
as  long  as  a  suffering  man  can  bear.  But,  at  length,  from  out 
the  depths  of  His  most  sacred  heart — from  out  the  very  divinity 
that  was  in  Him — the  fountains  of  the  great  deep  were  moved, 
and  forth  came  a  rush  of  blood  from  every  pore.  His  eyes  can 
no  longer  dwell  on  the  terrible  vision.  He  can  no  longer  look 
upon  these  red  scenes  of  blood  and  impurity.  A  weakness 
comes  mercifully  to  His  relief.  He  gazes  upon  the  fate  that 
God  has  put  upon  Him ;  and  then  He  falls  to  the  earth,  writh- 
ing in  His  agony;  and  forth  from  every  pore  of  His  sacred 
frame  streams  the  blood!  Behold  Him!  Behold  the  blood 
as  it  oozes  out  through  His  garments,  making  them  red  as  those 
of  a  man  who  has  trodden  in  the  wine-press  !  Behold  Him,  as 
His  agonizing  face  lies  prone  upon  the  earth.  Behold  Him,  as, 
in  the  hour  of  that  terrible  agony,  His  blood  reddens  the  soil  of 

10 


<46  Christ  on  Calvary. 

GethsemaneJ  Behold  Him,  as  He  writhes  on  the  ground— one 
mass  of  streaming  blood — sweating  blood  from  head  to  foot — 
crying  out  in  His  agony  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world !  A 
mountain  of  the  anger  of  God  is  upon  Him.  Behold  Him  in 
Gethsemane,  O  Christian  man  !  Kneel  down  by  His  side  !  Lie 
down  on  that  blood-stained  earth,  and  for  the  love  of  Jesus 
Christ,  whisper  one  word  of  consolation  to  Him !  For,  remem- 
ber that  you  and  I  were  there — were  there,  and  He  saw  us — 
even  as  He  sees  us  in  this  hour,  gathered  under  the  roof  of 
this  church.  He  saw  us  there  in  our  quality  of  sinners,  with 
every  sin  that  ever  we  committed — as  if  it  were  a  stone  in  our 
uplifted  hand  flung  down  upon  His  defenceless  form !  When 
Acan  was  convicted  of  a  crime,  Joshua  gave  word  that  every 
man  of  the  Jewish  nation  should  take  a  stone  in  his  hand,  and 
fling  it  at  him  ;  and  all  the  people  of  Israel  came  and  flung  them 
upon  him,  and  put  him  to  death.  So  every  son  of  man,  from 
Adam  down  to  the  last  that  was  born  on  this  earth — every  son 
of  man — every  human  being  that  breathed  the  breath  of  God's 
creation  in  this  world,  was  there,  in  that  hour,  to  fling  his  sins, 
and  let  them  fall  down  upon  Jesus  Christ.  All,  all — save  one. 
There  was  one  whose  hand  was  not  lifted  against  him.  There 
was  one  who,  if  she  had  been  there,  could  be  only  there  to  help 
Him  and  to  console  Him.  But  no  help,  no  consolation  in  that 
hour !  Therefore,  Mary,  the  only  sinless  one,  was  absent.  He 
rises  after  an  hour.  No  scourge  has  been  yet  laid  upon  that 
sacred  body.  No  executioner's  hand  has  profaned  Him  as  yet. 
No  nail  had  been  driven  through  His  hands.  And  yet  the 
blood  covered  His  body — for  His  Passion  began  from  that 
source  to  which  I  have  alluded— His  own  divine  spirit  !  His 
Tassion — His  pain— began  from  within*  He  rises  from  the 
earth.  What  is  this  which  we  hear?  There  is  a  sound,  as  of 
the  voices  of  a  rabble.  There  are  hoarse  voices  filling  the 
night.  There  are  men  with  clubs  in  their  hands,  and  lanterns 
lighted.  They  come  with  fire  and  fury  in  their  eyes,  and  the 
universal  voice  is,  "Where  is  He?  Where  is  He?"  Ah,  there 
is  one  at  the  head  of  them !  You  hear  his  voice.  "  Come 
cautiously!  I  see  Him.  I  will  point  Him  out  to  you  !  There 
are  four   of   them.     There  He  is,  with  three  of    His  friends. 

•  Vide  Newman,  "  Mental  Sufferings  of  our  Lord  in  his  Passion." 


Christ  on  Calvary.  147 

When  you  see  me  take  a  man  in  my  arms  and  kiss  him,  He  is 
the  man !  Lay  hold  of  Him  at  once,  and  drag  Him  away  with 
you — and  do  what  you  please!"  Who  is  he  that  says  this? 
Who  are  they  that  come  like  hell-hounds,  thirsting  for  the  blood 
of  Jesus  Christ  ?  That  come  with  the  rage  of  hell  in  their 
blood,  and  in  their  mouths  ?  They  are  come  to  take  Him  and 
to  tear  Him  to  pieces  !  Who  is  this  that  leads  them  on  ?  Oh, 
friends  !  Oh,  friends  and  men  !  it  is  Judas,  the  Apostle  !  Judas, 
who  spent  three  years  in  the  society  of  Jesus  Christ !  Judas, 
that  was  taught  by  Him  every  lesson  of  piety  and  virtue,  by 
word  and  by  example.  Judas,  who  received  the  priesthood. 
Judas,  upon  whose  lips,  even  now,  blushes  the  sacred  blood  re- 
ceived in  Holy  Communion  !  Oh,  it  is  Judas !  And  he  has 
come  to  give  up  his  Master,  whom  he  has  sold  for  thirty  pieces 
of  silver.  He  went,  after  his  unworthy  communion,  to  the 
Pharisees,  and  he  said :  "  What  will  you  give  me,  and  I  will 
sell,  betray  to  you? — give  Him  up?"  He  put  no  price  upon 
Jesus.  He  thought  so  little  of  his  Master  that  he  was  prepared 
to  take  anything  they  would  offer.  They  offered  him  thirty 
small  pieces  of  silver;  and  he  clutched  at  the  money.  He 
thought  it  was  a  great  deal,  and  more  than  Jesus  Christ  was 
worth !  Now  he  comes  to  fulfil  his  portion  of  the  contract , 
and  he  points  the  Lord  out  by  going  up  to  him — putting  his 
traitor  lips  upon  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  stamping  upon 
that  face  the  kiss  of  a  false-hearted,  a  wicked  and  a  traitorous 
follower.  Behold  him  now.  The  Son  of  God  sees  him  ap- 
proach. He  opens  his  arms  to  him.  Judas  flings  himself  in 
his  Master's  arms,  and  he  hears  the  gentle  reproach— Oh,  last 
proof  of  love ! — Oh,  last  opportunity  to  him  to  repent — even  in 
this  hour! — "Judas,  is  it  with  a  kiss  thou  betrayest  the  Son  of 
Man  ?" 

Now,  the  multitude  rushes  in  upon  Him  and  seizes  Him. 
We  have  a  supplement  to  the  Gospel  narrative  in  the  revela- 
tions of  many  of  the  Saints  and  of  holy  souls,  who,  in  reward 
for  their  extraordinary  devotion  to  the  Passion  of  our  Lord, 
were  favored  with  a  closer  sight  of  His  sufferings.  Now,  we  are 
told  by  one  of  these,  whose  revelations,  though  not  yet  ap- 
proved, are  tolerated  by  the  Church,  that  when  our  divine 
Lord  gave  Himself  into  the  hands  of  His  enemies,  they  bound 
His   sacred  arms  with   a   rope,  and    rushed    toward   the  city, 


148  Christ  on  Calvary. 

dragging  along  with  them,  forcibly  and  violently,  the  exhausted 
Redeemer.  Exhausted,  I  say,  for  His  soul  had  just  passed 
through  the  agony  of  His  prayer,  and  His  body  was  still  drip- 
ping with  the  sweat  of  blood.  Between  that  spot  and  Jerusalem 
flowed  the  little  stream  called  the  Brook  of  Kedron.  When 
they  came  to  that  little  stream  our  Saviour  stumbled,  and  fell 
over  a  stone.  They,  without  waiting  to  give  Him  time  to  rise, 
pulled  and  dragged  Him  on  with  all  their  might.  They  literally 
dragged  him  through  the  water,  wounding  and  bruising  his 
body  by  contact  with  the  rocks  that  were  in  the  river's  bed.  It 
was  night  when  they  brought  him  into  Jerusalem.  That  night 
a  cohort  of  Roman  soldiers  formed  the  body-guard  of  Pilate. 
They  were  called  archers  ;  men  of  the  most  corrupt  and  terrible 
vices  ;  men  without  faith  in  God  or  man ;  men  whose  every 
word  was  either  a  blasphemy  or  an  impurity.  These  men,  who 
were  only  anxious  for  amusement,  when  they  found  the  prisoner 
dragged  into  Jerusalem  at  that  hour,  took  possession  of  him  for 
the  night,  and  they  brought  Him  to  their  quarters  ;  and  there 
the  Redeemer  was  put,  sitting  in  the  midst  of  them.  During 
the  whole  of  that  long  night,  between  Holy  Thursday  and  Good 
Friday  morning,  the  soldiers  remained  sleepless,  employed  in 
loud  revel,  in  their  derision  and  torture  of  the  Son  of  God. 
They  struck  Him  on  the  head.  They  spat  upon  Him.  They 
hustled  Him  with  scorn  from  one  to  another.  They  bruised 
Him.  They  wounded  Him  in  every  conceivable  form.  Here, 
silent  as  a  lamb  before  the  shearer,  was  the  Eternal  Son  of  God, 
looking  out,  with  eyes  of  infinite  knowledge  and  purity,  upon 
the  very  vilest  of  men  that  all  the  iniquity  of  this  earth  could 
bring  around  Him. 

He  was  brought  before  the  high-priest.  He  was  asked  to 
answer.  The  moment  the  Son  of  God  opened  His  lips  to 
speak — the  moment  he  attempted  to  testify — a  brawny  soldier 
came  out  of  the  ranks,  stepped  before  our  Divine  Lord,  and 
saying  to  Him:  "  Answerest  thou  the  high-priest  thus?"  drew 
back  his  clenched,  mailed  hand,  with  the  full  force  of  a  strong 
man,  flinging  himself  forward,  struck  Almighty  God  in  the  face  ! 
The  Saviour  reeled,  stunned  by  the  blow.  The  morning  came. 
Now  He  is  led  before  Pilate,  the  Roman  governor,  who  alone  has 
power  to  sentence  Him  to  death,  if  He  be  guilty ;  and  who  has 
the  obligation  to  protect  Him  and  to  set  Him  at  liberty,  if  He 


Christ  on  Calvary.  149 

be  innocent.  The  Scribes  and  the  Pharisees  were  there,  the 
leaders  of  the  people;  and  the  rabble  of  Jerusalem  was  with 
them  ;  and  in  the  midst  of  them  was  the  silent,  innocent  victim, 
who  knew  that  the  sad  and  terrible  hour  of  His  crucifixion  was 
upon  Him.  Brought  before  Pilate,  He  is  accused  of  this  crime 
and  that.  Witnesses  are  called ;  and  the  moment  they  come — 
the  moment  they  look  upon  the  face  of  God — they  are  unable 
to  give  testimony  against  Him.  They  could  say  nothing  that 
proved  Him  guilty  of  any  crime  :  and  Pilate,  enraged,  turned 
to  the  Pharisees,  and  said :  "  What  do  you  bring  this  man  here 
for  ?  Why  is  he  bound  ?  Why  is  he  bruised  and  maltreated  ? 
What  has  he  done  ?  I  find  no  crime,  or  shadow  of  a  crime  in 
Him."  He  is  not  only  innocent,  but  the  judge  declares,  be- 
fore all  the  people,  that  the  man  has  done  nothing  whatever  to 
deserve  any  punishment,  much  less  death.  How  is  this  sentence 
received  ?  The  Pharisees  are  busy  amongst  the  people,  whisper- 
ing their  calumnies,  and  prompting  them  to  cry' out,  and  say: 
"  Crucify  Him  !  crucify  Him  !  We  want  to  have  Jesus  of  Naza 
reth  crucified !  We  want  to  do  it  early,  because  the  evening  will 
come  and  bring  the  Sabbath  with  it !  We  want  to  have  his 
blood  shed !  Quick !  Quick !  Tell  Pilate  he  must  condemn 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  or  else  he  is  no  friend  to  Caesar !  "  The 
people  cry  out :  "Let  Him  be  crucified!  If  you  let  Him  go 
you  are  no  friend  of  Caesar !  "  What  says  Pilate  ?  "  Crucify 
your  King  !  He  calls  Himself  '  King  of  the  Jews.'  You,  your- 
selves, wished  to  make  Him  your  King,  and  you  honored  Him. 
Am  I  to  crucify  Him  whom  you  would  have  for  King?  Am  I 
to  crucify  your  King?  "  And  then — then,  in  an  awful  moment, 
Israel  declared  solemnly  that  God  was  no  longer  her  King ;  for 
the  people  cried  out :  "  He  is  not  our  King  !  We  have  no  King 
but  Caesar !  "  We  have  no  King  but  Caesar !  The  old  cry  of 
the  man  who,  committing  sin,  says :  "  I  have  no  King  but  my 
own  passions ;  I  have  no  King  but  this  world ;  I  have  no  King 
but  the  thoughts  of  money,  or  of  honors,  or  of  indulgence  !  " 
So  the  Jews  cried :  "  He  is  no  King  of  ours  ;  we  have  no  King 
but  Caesar !  "  Pilate,  no  doubt  in  a  spirit  of  compromise,  said 
to  himself,  "  I  see  this  man  cannot  escape.  I  see  murder  in 
these  people's  eyes !  They  are  determined  upon  the  crucifixion 
of  this  man,  and,  therefore,  I  must  try  to  find  out  some  way  or 
another  of  appealing  to  their  mercy."    Then  he  thought  to  him- 


150  Christ  on  Calvary. 

self,  "  I  will  make  an  example  of  Him.  I  will  tear  the  flesh  off 
His  bones.  I  will  cover  Him  with  blood.  I  will  make  Him 
such  a  pitiable  object  that  not  one  in  all  that  crowd  will  have 
the  heart  to  demand  further  punishment,  or  another  blow  for 
Him."  So  he  called  his  officers,  and  said:  "Take  this  man, 
and  scourge  Him  so  as  to  make  Him  frightful  to  behold  ;  let 
Him  be  so  mangled  that  when  I  show  Him  to  the  people  they 
may  be  moved  to  pity  and  spare  His  life,  for  He  is  an  innocent 
man."  In  the  cold,  early  morning,  the  Lord  is  led  forth  into 
the  court-yard  of  the  Praetorium,  and  there  sixty  of  the  strong- 
est men  of  the  guard  are  picked  out, — chosen  for  their  strengtli ; 
and  they  are  told  off  into  thirty  pairs,  and  every  man  of  the 
sixty  has  a  new  scourge  in  his  hand.  Some  have  chains  of  iron  ■ 
some,  cords  knotted,  with  steel  spurs  at  the  end  of  them  ;  others, 
the  green,  supple  twig,  plucked  from  the  hedge  in  the  early 
morning, — long,  and  supple,  and  terrible,  armed  with  thorns. 
Now,  these  men  come  and  close  around  our  Lord.  They  strip 
Him  of  His  garments;  they  leave  Him  perfectly  naked,  blush- 
ing in  His  infinite  modesty  and  purity,  so  that  He  longs  for  them 
to  begin  in  order  that  they  may  robe  Him  in  His  blood.  They 
tie  His  hands  to  a  pillar;  they  tie  Him  so  that  He  cannot  move, 
nor  shrink  from  a  blow,  nor  turn  aside.  And  then  the  two  first 
advance;  they  raise  their  brawny  arms  in  the  air;  and  then, 
with  a  hiss,  down  come  the  scourges  upon  the  sacred  body  of 
the  Lord !  Quicker  again  and  quicker  these  arms  rise  in  the 
air  with  these  terrible  scourges.  Each  stroke  leaves  its  livid 
mark.  The  flesh  rises  into  welts.  The  blood  is  congealed,  and 
purple  beneath  the  skin.  Presently,  the  scourge  comes  down 
again,  and  it  is  followed  by  a  quick  spurt  of  blood  from  the 
sacred  body  of  our  Lord — the  blows  quickening,  and  without 
pause,  and  without  mercy ;  the  blood  flowing  after  every  addi- 
tional blow, — till  these  two  strong  men  are  fatigued  and  tired 
out, — until  their  scourges  are  soddened,  and  saturated,  and 
dripping  with  His  blood,  do  they  still  strike  Him, — and  then, 
retire,  exhausted,  from  their  terrible  labor ; — in  comes  another 
pair — fresh,  vigorous,  fresh  arms  and  new  men — come  to  rain 
blows  upon  the  defenceless  body  of  the  Lord,  upon  His  sacred 
limbs — upon  His  sacred  shoulders.  Every  portion  of  His  sacred 
body  is  torn :  every  blow  brings  Mie  flesh  from  the  bones,  and 
opens  a  new  wound  and  a  new  stream  of  blood.    Now  He  stands 


Christ  on  Calvary.  151 

ankle  deep  in  His  own  blood, — hanging  out  from  that  pillar,  ex- 
hausted,  with  head  drooping,  almost  insensible.  He  is  still 
beaten, — even  when  the  very  men  who  strike  Him  think,  or 
suspect,  that  they  may  have  killed  Him.  It  was  written  in  the 
Old  Law,  "  If  a  man  be  found  guilty,"  says  the  Lord  in  Deuter- 
onomy, "let  him  be  beaten,  and  let  the  measure  of  his  sin  be 
the  measure  of  his  punishment;  yet,  so  that  no  criminal  receive 
more  than  forty  stripes,  lest  thy  brother  go  away  shamefully 
torn  from  before  thy  face !  "  These  were  the  words  of  the  law. 
Well  the  Pharisees  knew  it !  And  there  they  stood  around  in 
the  outer  circle,  with  hate  in  their  eyes,  fury  upon  their  lips ; 
and  even  when  the  very  men  who  were  dealing  out  their  revenge 
thought  they  had  killed  the  victim  they  were  scourging,  still 
came  forth  from  these  hardened  hearts  the  words  of  encourage- 
ment :  "  Strike  Him  still !  Strike  Him  still !  "  And  there  they 
continued  their  cruel  task  until  sixty  men  retired,  fatigued  and 
worn  out  with  the  work  of  the  scourging  of  our  Lord. 

Now,  behold  Him,  as  senseless  He  hangs  from  that  pillar, 
one  mass  of  bruised  and  torn  flesh  ! — one  open  wound,  from  the 
crown  of  His  head  to  the  soles  of  His  feet ! — all  bathed  in  the 
crimson  of  His  own  blood,  and  terrible  to  behold  !  If  you  saw 
Him  here,  as  He  stood  there;  if  you  saw  Him  now,  standing 
upon  that  altar, — there  is  not  a  man  or  woman  amongst  you 
that  could  bear  to  look  upon  the  terrible  sight.  They  cut  the 
cords  that  bound  Him  to  the  pillar ;  and  the  Redeemer  fell 
down,  bathed  in  His  own  blood,  and  senseless  upon  the  ground. 
Behold  Him  again,  as  at  Gethsemane  ;  now,  no  longer  the  pain 
from  within,  but  the  pain  from  the  terrible  hand  of  man — the 
instrument  of  God's  vengeance.  Oh,  behold  Him  !  Mary  heard 
those  stripes  and  yet  she  could  not  save  her  Son.  Mary's  heart 
went  down  with  Him  to  the  ground,  as  He  fell  from  that  pillar 
of  His  scourging!  Oh,  behold  Him,  you  mothers  !  You  fathers, 
behold  the  Virgin's  Child,  your  God — Jesus  Christ !  The  sol- 
diers amused  themselves  at  the  sight  of  His  sufferings,  and  scoffed 
at  Him  as  He  lay  prostrate.  Recovering  somewhat,  after  a  time 
He  opened  His  languid  eyes  and  rose  from  that  ground, — rose, 
all  torn  and  bleeding.  They  throw  an  old  purple  rag  around 
His  shoulders,  and  they  set  Him  upon  a  stone.  One  of  them 
has  been,  in  th"  meantime,  busily  engaged  in  twisting  and  twin- 
ing a  crown  made  of  some  of  those  thorns  which  they  had  pre- 


152  Christ  on  Calvary. 

pared  for  the  scourging, — a  crown  in  which  seventy-two  long 
thorns  were  put,  so  that  they  entered  into  the  sacred  head  of 
our  Lord.  This  crown  was  set  upon  His  brow.  Then  a  man 
came  with  a  reed  in  his  hand  and  struck  those  thorns  deep  into 
the  tender  forehead.  They  are  fastened  deeply  in  the  most 
sensitive  organ,  where  pain  becomes  maddening  in  its  agony. 
He  strikes  the  thorns  in  till  even  the  sacred  humanity  of  our 
Lord  forces  from  Him  the  cry  of  agony!  He  strikes  them  in 
still  deeper! — deeper!  Oh,  my  God !  Oh,  Father  of  Mercy! 
And  all  this  opens  up  new  streams  of  blood  ! — new  fountains  of 
love !  The  blood  streams  down,  and  the  face  of  the  Most  High 
is  hidden  under  its  crimson  veil.  Now,  now,  indeed,  Oh  Pilate, 
— Oh  wise  and  compromising  Pilate, — now,  indeed,  you  have 
gained  your  end !  You  have  proved  yourself  the  friend  of 
Caesar.  Now,  there  is  no  fear  but  that  the  Jews,  when  they  see 
Him,  will  be  moved  by  compassion  !  They  bring  Him  back  and 
they  put  Him  standing  before  the  Roman  governor.  His  rugged 
Pagan  heart  is  moved  within  him  with  horror  when  he  sees  the 
rearful  example  they  have  made  of  Him.  Frightened  when  he 
beheld  Him,  he  turned  away  his  eyes ;  the  spectacle  was  too 
terrible.  He  called  for  water  and  washed  his  hands.  "  I  declare 
before  God,"  he  says,  "  I  am  innocent  of  this  man's  blood !  " 
He  leads  Him  out  on  the  balcony  of  his  house.  There  was  the 
raging  multitude,  swaying  to  and  fro.  Some  are  exciting  the 
crowd,  urging"  them  to  cry  out  to  crucify  Him  ;  some  are  prepar- 
ing the  Cross,  others  getting  ready  the  hammer  and  nails,  some 
thinking  of  the  spot  where  they  would  crucify  Him  !  There 
they  were,  arguing  with  diabolical  rage.  Pilate  came  forth  in 
his  robes  of  office.  Soldiers  stand  on  either  side  of  him.  Two 
soldiers  bring  in  our  Lord.  His  hands  are  tied.  A  reed  is  put 
in  His  hand  in  derision.  Thorns  are  on  His  brow.  Blood  is 
flowing  from  every  member  of  His  sacred  body.  An  old,  tattered 
purple  rag  is  flung  over  Him.  Pilate  brings  Him  out,  and,  look- 
ing round  on  the  multitude,  says :  "  Ecce  homo!  Behold  the 
man  !  You  said  I  was  no  friend  to  Caesar.  You  said  I  was 
afraid  to  punish  Him !  Behold  Him  now !  Is  there  a  man 
amongst  you  who  would  have  the  heart  to  demand  more  pun- 
ishment ?  "  Oh,  heaven  and  earth!  Oh,  heaven  and  earth! 
The  cry  from  out  every  lip,  from  out  every  heart,  is :  "  We  are 
not  yet  satisfied!     Give  Him  to  us!     Give  Him  to  us !     We 


Christ  on  Calvary.  153 

w.7i  crucify  Him  !  "  "  But,"  says  Pilate,  "  I  am  innocent  of  His 
blood  !  "  And  then  came  a  word — and  this  word  has  brought 
a  curse  upon  the  Jews  from  that  day  to  this.  Then  came  the 
word  that  brought  the  consequences  of  their  crime  on  their  hard 
hearts  and  blinded  intellects.  They  cried  out,  "  His  blood  be 
upon  us  and  upon  our  children  !  Crucify  Him  !  "  "  But,"  says 
Pilate,  "  here  is  a  man  in  prison  ;  he  is  a  robber  and  a  murderer  ! 
And  here  is  Jesus  of  Nazareth  whom  I  declare  to  be  innocent ! 
One  of  these  I  must  release.  Which  will  you  have — Jesus  or 
Barabbas  ?  "  And  they  cried  out  "  Barabbas  !  give  us  Barabbas  ! 
But  let  Jesus  be  crucified !  "  Here  is  compared  the  Son  of  God 
to  the  robber  and  the  murderer.  And  the  robber  and  murderer 
is  declared  fit  to  live,  and  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  is  de- 
clared fit  only  to  die !  The  vilest  man  in  Jerusalem  declared  in 
that  hour  that  he  would  not  associate  with  our  Lord,  and  that 
the  Son  of  God  was  not  worthy  to  breathe  the  air  polluted  by 
this  man  !  So  Barabbas  came  forth,  rejoicing  in  his  escape  ;  and, 
as  he  mingled  in  the  crowd,  he,  too,  threw  up  his  hands  and 
cried  out,  "  Oh,  let  Him  be  crucified  !  Let  Him  be  crucified  !"  He 
is  led  forth  from  the  tribunal  of  Pilate.  And,  now,  just  outside  of 
the  Prefect's  door,  there  are  men  holding  up  a  long,  weighty,  rude 
cross,  that  they  had  made  rapidly ;  for  they  took  two  large  beams, 
put  one  across  the  other,  fastened  them  with  great  nails,  and  made 
it  strong  enough  to  uphold  a  full-grown  man.  There  is  the  cross  ! 
There  is  the  man  with  the  nails !  And  there  are  all  the  accom- 
paniments of  the  execution.  And  He  who  is  scarcely  able  to 
stand — He,  bruised  and  afflicted — the  Man  of  Sorrows,  fainting 
with  infirmity,  is  told  to  take  that  cross  upon  his  bleeding, 
wounded  shoulders,  and  to  go  forward  to  the  mountain  of  Cal- 
vary. Taking  to  him  that  cross,  holding  it  to  His  wounded 
breast,  putting  to  it  in  tender  kisses  the  lips  that  were  distilling 
blood,  the  Son  of  God,  with  the  cross  upon  His  shoulders, 
turns  His  faint  and  tottering  footsteps  toward  the  steep  and 
painful  way  that  led  to  Calvary.  Behold  Him  as  He  goes  forth  ! 
That  cross  is  a  weight  almost  more  than  a  man  can  carry ;  and 
it  is  upon  the  shoulders  of  one  from  whom  all  strength  and 
manliness  are  gone.  Behold  the  Redeemer,  as  He  toils  pain- 
fully along,  amid  the  shouts  and  shrieks  of  the  enraged  people. 
Behold  Him  as  he  toils  along  the  flinty  way,  the  soldiers  driv- 
ing Him  on,  the   people  inciting  them   every  one  rushing  and 


154  Christ  on  Calvary. 

hastening  to  Calvary,  to  witness  the  execution.  John,  the  be- 
loved, follows  Him.  A  few  of  his  faithful  followers  toil  along. 
But  there  is  one  who  traces  each  of  His  blood-stained  footsteps  ; 
there  is  one  who  follows  Him  with  a  breaking  heart ;  there  is 
one  whose  very  soul  within  her  is  pierced  and  torn  with  the 
sword  of  sorrow.  Oh,  need  I  name  the  Mother,  the  Queen  of 
Martyrs !  In  that  hour  of  his  martyrdom,  Mary,  the  mother  of 
Jesus,  followed  immediately  in  His  footsteps,  and  her  whole 
soul  went  forth  in  prayer  for  an  opportunity  to  approach  Him, 
to  wipe  the  blood  from  His  sacred  face.  Oh,  if  they  would 
only  let  her  come  to  Him,  and  say,  "  My  child !  I  am  with 
you  !"  If  they  would  only  let  her  take  in  her  womanly  arms, 
from  off  the  shoulders  of  her  dear  Son,  that  heavy  cross  that 
He  cannot  bear!  But,  no!  She  must  witness  His  misery; 
she  must  witness  His  pain.  He  toils  along;  He  takes  the  first 
few  steps  up  the  rugged  side  of  Calvary.  Suddenly  His  heart 
ceases  to  beat ;  the  light  leaves  His  eyes ;  He  sways,  for  a 
moment,  to  and  fro ;  the  weakness  and  the  sorrow  of  death  are 
upon  Him ;  He  totters,  falls  to  the  earth ;  and  down,  with  a 
heavy  crash,  comes  the  weighty  cross  upon  the  prostrate  form 
of  Jesus  Christ!  Oh,  behold  Him,  as  for  the  third  time,  He 
embraces  that  earth  which  is  sanctified  and  redeemed  by  His 
love !  Mary  rushes  forward ;  Mary  thinks  her  child  is  dead ; 
she  thinks  that  terrible  cross  must  have  crushed  him  into. the 
earth.  She  rushes  forward  ;  but  with  rude  and  barbarous  words 
the  woman  is  flung  aside.  The  cross  is  lifted  up  and  placed  on 
the  shoulders  of  Simon  of  Cyrene ;  and  with  blows  and  blas- 
phemies, the  Saviour  of  the  world  is  obliged  to  rise  from  that 
earth,  and,  worn  with  the  sorrows  and  afflictions  of  death,  faces 
the  rugged  steep  on  the  summit  of  which  is  the  place  destined 
for  His  crucifixion.  Arrived  at  the  place,  they  tear  off  His 
garments ;  they  take  from  Him  the  seamless  garment  which 
His  mother's  loving  hands  had  woven  for  Him ;  they  take  the 
humble  clothing  in  which  the  Son  of  God  had  robed  Himself — 
saturated,  steeped  as  it  is  in  His  blood  ;  and  in  removing  them 
they  open  afresh  every  wound,  and  once  again  the  saving  blood 
of  Christ  is  poured  out  upon  the  ground.  With  rude,  blasphe- 
mous words,  the  God-man  is  told  to  lie  down  upon  that  cross. 
Of  His  own  free  will  He  stretches  His  tender  limbs,  puts  forth 
His  hands,  and  stretches  out   His  feet  at  their  order.     The  ex- 


Christ  on  Calvary.  155 

icutioners  take  the  nails  and  the  hammer,  and  they  kneel  upon 
His  sacred  bosom  ;  they  press  out  His  hands  till  they  bring  the 
palms  to  where  they  made  the  holes  to  fit  the  nails.  They 
stretch  Him  out  upon  that  cross,  even  as  the  Paschal  Lamb  was 
stretched  out  upon  the  altar ;  they  kneel  upon  the  cross  ;  they 
lay  the  nails  upon  the  palms  of  His  hands.  The  first  blow 
drives  the  nail  deep  into  His  hands,  the  next  blow  sends  it  into 
the  cross.  Blow  follows  blow.  They  are  inflamed  with  the 
rage  of  hell.  Earnestly  they  work — and  hell  delights  in  the 
scene — tearing  the  muscles  and  the  sinews  of  His  hands  and 
feet.  Rude,  terrible  blows  fall  on  these  nails,  and  re-echo  in 
the  heart  of  the  Virgin,  until  that  heart  seems  to  be  broken 
at  the  foot  of  the  cross.  And  now,  when  they  have  driven 
these  nails  to  the  heads,  fastening  Him  to  the  wood,  the 
cross  is  lifted  up  from  the  ground.  Slowly,  solemnly,  the 
figure  of  Jesus  Christ,  all  red  with  blood,  all  torn  and  dis- 
figured, rises  into  the  air,  until  the  cross,  attaining  its  full 
height,  is  fixed  into  its  socket  in  the  earth.  The  banner  of 
salvation  is  flung  out  over  the  world  ;  and  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Son  of  God,  and  the  Redeemer  of  mankind,  appears  in  mid-air, 
and  looks  out  over  the  crowd  and  over  Jerusalem,  over  hill  and 
valley,  far  away  towards  the  sea  of  Galilee,  and  all  around  the 
horizon  ;  and  the  dying  eyes  of  the  Saviour  are  turned  over  the 
land  and  the  people  for  whom  He  is  shedding  His  blood.  Up- 
lifted in  mid-air — the  eternal  sacrifice  of  the  Redeemer  for  ever- 
lasting— hanging  from  these  three  terrible  nails  on  the  Cross — 
for  three  hours  He  remained.  Every  man  took  up  his  position. 
Mary,  His  Mother,  approaches,  for  this  is  the  hour  of  her  agony  ; 
she  must  suffer  in  soul  what  He  suffers  in  body.  John,  the  dis- 
ciple of  love,  approaches,  and  takes  his  stand  under  his  Master's 
outstretched  hands.  Mary  Magdalen  rushes  through  the  guards, 
to  the  feet  of  her  Lord  and  Master  ;  they  are  now  bathed  with 
other  tears — with  the  tears  of  blood  that  save  the  world  ;  the 
feet  which  it  was  her  joy  to  weep  over  !  And  now  she  clasps 
the  cross,  and  pours  out  her  tears,  until  they  mingle  with  the 
blood  which  flows  down  His  feet.  There  are  the  Pharisees  and 
the  Scribes,  who  had  gained  their  point ;  they  come  and  stand 
before  the  Cross  ;  they  look  upon  that  figure  of  awful  pain  and 
misery ;  they  see  those  thorns  sunk  deeply  into  that  drooping 
head    with  no  love  in  their  hearts  ;    they  see  the  agony  ex- 


156  Christ  on  Calvary. 

pressed  in  the  eyes  of  the  victim  who  is  dying;  and  then,  look- 
ing  up  exultingly,  they  rejoice  and  say  to  Him :  "  You  said  you 
could  destroy  the  Temple,  and  build  it  up  in  three  days  ;  now, 
come  down  from  the  cross,  and  we  will  believe  in  and  worship 
you."  The  Roman  soldier  stood  there,  admiring  the  courage 
with  which  the  man  died.  The  third  hour  is  approaching. 
The  penitent  thief  on  His  right  hand  had  received  his  pardon. 
A  sudden  gloom  gathers  round  the  scene.  Before  we  come  to 
the  last  moment,  I  ask  you  to  consider  Jesus  Christ  as  your 
God.  I  ask  you  to  consider  the  sacrifice  that  He  made,  and  to 
consider  the  circumstances  under  which  He  approached  that 
last  moment  of  His  life.  All  He  had  in  the  world  was  some 
little  money;  it  was  kept  to  give  to  the  poor;  Judas  had  that, 
and  he  had  stolen  it.  Christ  had  literally  nothing  but  the 
simple  garments  with  which  He  had  been  clothed ;  these  the 
soldiers  took,  and  they  raffled  for  them  under  His  dying  eyes. 
What  remained  for  Him?  The  love  of  His  Mother;  the  sym- 
pathy of  John  ?  But  He,  uplifted  on  the  cross,  said  to  Mary, 
"  Woman,  behold  thy  son  !"  And  to  John  He  said,  "  Son,  be- 
hold thy  mother!"  "  Thus  I  give  one  to  the  other;  let  that 
love  suffice ;  and  leave  Me  all  alone  and  abandoned  to  die." 
What  remained  to  Him?  His  reputation  for  sanctity,  for  wis- 
dom, and  for  power?  His  reputation  for  sanctity  was  so  great, 
that  the  people  said :  "  This  man  never  could  do  such  things  if 
He  had  not  come  from  God."  And  as  to  his  wisdom,  His 
reputation  for  wisdom  was  such  that  we  read,  not  one  of  the 
Pharisees  or  doctors  of  the  law  had  the  courage  to  argue  with 
Him.  His  reputation  for  power  was  such  that  the  people  all 
said :  "  This  man  speaks  and  preaches,  not  as  the  Pharisees, 
but  as  one  having  power."  Christ  had  sacrificed  and  given  up 
His  reputation  for  sanctity,  for  He  was  crucified  as  a  blasphe- 
mer and  a  teacher  of  evil.  His  reputation  for  wisdom  was 
sacrificed  in  the  course  of  His  Passion,  when  Herod  declared 
that  He  was  a  fool.  Clothed  in  a  white  garment  in  derision, 
He  was  marched  through  the  streets  of  Jerusalem,  from 
Herod's  palace  to  Pilate's  house,  dressed  as  a  fool ;  and  men 
came  to  their  doors  to  point  the  finger  of  scorn  and  laugh  at 
Him,  and  reproached  each  other  for  having  listened  to  His 
doctrine.  His  reputation  for  power  was  gone.  They  came  to 
the  foot  of  the  cross  and  said :  "  Now,  if  you  have  the  power, 


Christ  on  Calvary.  157 

come  down  from  that  cross  and  we  will  believe  you."  Now, 
all  the  man's  earthly  possessions  are  gone ;  His  few  garments 
are  gone  ;  Mary's  love  and  her  sustaining  compassion  are  gone  ; 
His  reputation  is  gone  ;  He  is  one  wound,  from  head  to  foot; 
the  anger  of  man  has  vented  itself  upon  Him.  What  remains 
for  Him?  The  ineffable  consolations  of  His  divinity;  the 
infinite  peace  of  the  God-head,  the  Father !  Oh,  Man  of 
Sorrow  !  Oh,  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  cling  to  that !  Whatever 
else  may  be  taken  from  you,  that  cannot  be  taken  away.  Oh, 
Master,  lean  upon  Thy  God-head !  Oh,  crucified,  bleeding, 
dying  Lord,  do  not  give  up  that  which  is  Thy  peace  and  Thy 
comfort — Thy  joy  in  the  midst  of  all  this  suffering !  But  what 
do  I  see !  The  dying  head  is  lifted  up ;  the  drooping  eyes  are 
cast  heavenwards ;  an  expression  of  agony  absorbing  all  others 
comes  over  the  dying  face,  and  a  voice  breaks  forth  from  the 
quivering,  agonized  lips :  "  My  God !  My  God !  why  hast 
Thou  forsaken  Me  !"  The  all-sufficient  comfort  of  the  divinity 
and  the  sustaining  power  of  the  Father's  love  are  put  away 
from  Him  in  that  hour!  A  cloud  came  between  Jesus 
Christ  upon  the  Cross,  the  victim  of  our  sins,  and  the 
Father's  face  in  heaven ;  and  that  cloud  was  the  concentrated 
anger  of  God  which  came  upon  His  divine  Son,  because  of  our 
sins  and  our  transgressions.  Not  that  His  divinity  quitted  Him. 
No ;  He  was  still  God  ;  but  by  His  own  act  and  free  will,  He 
put  away  the  comfort  and  the  sustaining  power  of  the  divinity 
for  a  time,  in  order  that  every  element  of  sorrow,  every  grief, 
every  misery  of  which  the  greatest  victim  of  this  earth  was  capa- 
ble, should  be  all  concentrated  upon  Him  at  the  hour  of  His 
death.  And  then,  having  used  these  solemn  words,  He  awaited 
the  moment  when  the  Father's  will  should  separate  the  soul 
from  the  body.  Now,  Mary  and  John  have  embraced  ;  Judas 
is  struggling  in  the  last  throes  of  his  self-imposed  death ;  Peter 
has  wept  his  tears.  The  devil  for  a  moment  triumphs ;  and  the 
man-God  upon  the  cross  awaits  the  hour  and  the  moment  of  the 
world's  redemption.  The  sun  in  the  heavens  is  withdrawn  be- 
hind mysterious  clouds  ;  and  though  it  was  but  three  o'clock  in 
the  day,  a  darkness  like  that  of  midnight  came  upon  the  land. 
Men  looked  upon  each  other  in  horror  and  in  terror.  Presently 
a  rumbling  noise  was  heard ;  and  they  looked  around  and  saw 
the  hills  and  the  mountains  tremble  on  their  bases  ;  the  very 


158  Christ  on  Calvary. 

ground  seemed  to  rock  beneath  them ;  it  groans  as  though  the 
earth  were  breaking  up  from  its  centre  ;  the  rocks  are  splitting 
up,  and  round  them  strange  figures  are  flitting  here  and  there  ; 
the  graves  are  opened,  and  the  dead  entombed  there  are  walking 
in  the  dark  ways  before  them.  What  is  this  ?  Who  is  this 
terrible  man  that  we  have  put  up  on  that  cross?  The  earth 
quakes  ;  darkness  is  still  upon  it ;  perfect  silence  reigns  over 
Calvary,  unbroken  by  the  cry  of  the  dying  Redeemer — unbroken 
by  the  voice  of  the  scoffers — unbroken  by  the  sobs  of  the  Mag- 
dalen. Every  heart  seems  to  stand  still.  Then,  over  that 
silence,  in  the  midst  of  that  darkness,  is  heard  the  loud  cry, 
"  Oh,  Father,  into  Thy  hands  I  commend  My  spirit !"  The 
head  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  droops  :  the  Man  upon  the  cross 
is  dead  ;  and  the  world  is  saved  and  redeemed  !  The  moment 
the  cry  came  forth  from  the  dying  lips  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  devil, 
who  stood  there,  knew  that  it  was  the  Son  of  God  who  was 
crucified,  and  that  his  day  was  gone.  Howling  in  despair  he 
fled  from  the  Redeemer's  presence  into  the  lowest  depths  of 
hell.  The  world  is  saved.  The  world  is  redeemed.  Man's  sin 
is  wiped  out.  The  blood  that  washed  away  the  iniquity  of  our 
race  has  ceased  to  flow  from  the  dead  and  pulseless  heart  of 
Jesus.  Wrapt  in  prayer,  Mary  bowed  down  her  head  under  the 
weight  of  her  sorrows.  The  Magdalen  looked  up  and  beheld 
the  dead  face  of  her  Redeemer.  John  stretched  out  his  hands 
and  looked  upon  that  face.  The  Roman  soldier  lays  hold  of 
his  lance,  under  some  strange  impulse.  Word  comes  that  the 
body  was  to  be  taken  down  ;  they  did  not  know  whether  our 
Lord  was  dead ;  there  might  yet  some  remnant  of  life  remain  in 
Him  ;  the  question  was  to  prove  that  He  was  dead,  and  this 
man  approaches.  As  a  warrior,  he  puts  his  lance  in  rest,  rushes 
forward  with  all  the  strength  of  his  arm,  and  drives  the  lance 
right  into  the  heart  of  the  Lord  !  The  heavy  cross  sways  ;  it 
seems  as  if  it  was  about  to  fall ;  the  lance  quivers  for  an  instant 
in  the  wound ;  the  man  draws  it  forth  again  ;  and  forth  from 
the  heart  of  the  dead  Christ  streamed  the  waters  of  life  and  the 
blood  of  redemption.  The  soldier  drew  back  his  lance,  and  the 
next  moment,  on  his  knees,  before  the  Crucified,  with  the  lance 
dripping  with  the  blood  of  the  Lord  still  in  his  hand,  he  cried  out, 
"Truly,  this  man  was  the  Son  of  God!"  Then  the  earthquake 
began  again ;  the  dead  were  seen  passing  in  fearful  array,  turning 


Christ  on  Calvary.  159 

the  eyes  of  the  tomb  upon  the  faces  of  those  Pharisees  who  had 
crucified  the  Lord.  And  the  people,  frightened,  became  con- 
scious that  they  had  committed  a  terrible  crime,  when  they 
heard  Longinus,  the  Roman  soldier,  cry  out,  "  This  Man  is  truly 
the  Son  of  God,  whom  you  have  crucified."  Then  came  down 
from  Calvary  the  crowds,  exclaiming,  "  Yes,  truly,  this  is  the  Son 
of  God."  And  they  went  down  the  hill-side,  weeping  and  beating 
their  breasts.  Oh,  how  much  we  cost !  Oh,  how  great  was  the 
price  that  He  paid  for  us  !  Oh,  how  generously  He  gave  all  He 
had — and  He  was  God — for  your  salvation  and  mine  !  It  is  well 
to  rejoice  and  be  here  ;  it  is  well  to  come  and  contemplate  the 
blessings  which  that  blessed,  gracious  Lord  has  conferred  on  us. 
It  is,  also,  well  to  consider  what  He  paid  and  how  much  it  cost 
Him.  And  if  we  consider  this,  then,  with  Mary,  the  mother, 
and  Mary,  the  Magdalen,  and  John,  the  Evangelist  and  friend 
— then  will  our  hearts  be  afflicted.  For  the  soul  that  is  not 
afflicted  on  this  day,  shall  be  wiped  out  from  the  pages  of  the 
Book  of  Life. 


TEMPERANCE. 


[Discourse  delivered  before  the  Convention  of  the  New  Jersey  Catholic  Total  Ab- 
stinence Union,  in  St.  John's  Church,  Paterson,  on  Thursday,  April  25th,  1872.] 

Y  FRIENDS  :  I  have  more  than  once  had  the  honor 
of  addressing  a  congregation  of  fellow-Catholics  and 
fellow-countrymen  since  I  came  to  the  United  States. 
I  have  spoken  to  them  on  various  subjects,  all  of  them 
important,  but  never  have  I  been  entrusted  with  a  more  import- 
ant subject  than  that  of  the  Christian  and  Catholic  virtue  of 
temperance.  I  cannot  forget  that  most  of  you,  if  not  all  of  you, 
are  of  my  own  race  and  my  own  blood.  It  is  a  race  of  which 
none  of  us  need  be  ashamed.  Perhaps  our  brightest  glory,  next 
to  that  of  our  Catholic  faith,  is  the  drop  of  Irish  blood  that  is  in 
our  veins.  And  I  have  more  than  once  asked  myself,  What  is 
it  that  condemns  this  race,  whom  God  has  blessed  with  so  much 
intellect  and  genius,  upon  whom  He  has  lavished  so  many  of 
His  highest  and  holiest  gifts,  crowning  all  with  that  gift  of  na- 
tional faith,  that  magnificent  tenacity  that,  in  spite  of  all  the 
powers  of  earth  or  hell,  has  clung  to  the  living  Christ  and  His 
Church — what  is  it  that  has  condemned  this  race  to  be  in  so 
many  lands  the  hewers  of  wood  and  the  drawers  of  water? 
"  Queer egio  in  terris  nostri  non plena  /abort's?"  Where  is  the 
nation,  or  the  land,  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  that  has  not  wit- 
nessed our  exile  and  our  tears  ?  And  how  is  it  that,  whilst  this 
man  or  that  man  rises  to  eminence  and  prosperity,  we  so  often, 
'.hough,  thank  God,  not  always,  find  that  the  Irishman,  by  some 
fatality  or  other,  is  destined  to  be  a  poor  man,  a  struggling 
man?  Well,  there  may  be  many  reasons  for  this  undoubted 
fact.  It  may  be  our  generosity,  and  I  admit  that  it  enters 
largely  as  a  reason.     It  may  be  a  certain — if  I  may  use  the  ex- 


Temperance.  161 

pression  in  this  sacred  edifice — a  certain  devil-may-care  kind  of 
a  spirit — "  come  day,  go  day,  God  send  Sunday" — that  doesn  t 
take  much  heed  or  much  concern  to  the  scraping  together  of 
dollars  in  this  world.  But  amongst  the  causes  of  our  depression 
there  certainly  is  one,  and  that  is  the  fatal  vice  of  intemperance. 
Now,  mark  me,  my  friends,  I  do  not  say  that  we  drink  more 
than  our  neighbors.  I  have  lived  amongst  English  and  Scotch- 
men, and  I  believe  that,  as  a  race — as  a  nati»n — the  Scotchmen 
drink  more  than  the  Irishmen.  I  have  often  and  often  seen  a 
Scotchman  at  it,  and  he  could  drink  three  Irishmen  blind.  But, 
somehow  or  other,  people  of  other  lands  have  a  trick  of  sticking 
to  the  beer  or  the  porter,  and  that  only  goes  into  their  stomachs 
and  sickens  them  ;  whilst  the  Irishman  goes  straight  for  the 
poteen  or  the  whiskey ;  and  that  gets  into  his  brain  and  sets 
him  mad. 

Now,  my  friends,  I  want  to  speak  to  you  as  a  glorious,  most 
honorable  body  of  Catholics — mostly  of  Irishmen — banded  to- 
gether as  one  man,  for  one  purpose  ;  and  that  purpose  is  to  vin- 
dicate the  honor  of  our  manhood,  of  our  religion,  and  of  our 
nationality,  by  means  of  the  glorious  virtue  of  self-restraint,  or 
of  temperance.  And  I  say  that  I  congratulate  you  as  a  society, 
as  the  component  elements  of  a  largely-spread  association  or 
society,  because  in  this  our  day  everything  goes  by  association. 
In  every  department,  in  every  walk  of  commercial  or  social  life 
we  have  what  in  this  country  are  called  "  rings,"  circles,  associa- 
tions, societies.  Get  up  a  railway ;  you  must  have  a  "  ring.' 
Open  a  canal ;  you  work  it  by  a  "  ring."  Start  a  political  idea 
you  bring  it  prominently  before  the  people  by  a  "  ring."  Elect 
an  officer  to  some  public  office  ;  it  must  be  done  by  a  "  ring.1 
The  world  that  we  live  in  nowadays  is  a  world  of  associations 
and,  unfortunately  for  us,  most  of  these  associations  are  in  the 
hands  of  the  devil.  God  must  have  His  ;  the  Church  must  have 
hers ;  and  men  must  save  themselves,  in  this  our  day,  just  as  so 
many  lose  themselves,  by  association.  And,  therefore,  it  is 
necessary,  for  the  purpose  of  strengthening  oneself  in  good  re- 
solutions, and  of  spreading  the  light  of  good  example  around 
him,  that  in  such  a  society  as  this,  a  man  should  act  on  his  fel- 
low-man by  association.  Now,  if  you  wish  to  know  the  glorious 
object  for  which  you  are  associated  in  this  grand  temperance 
movement ;  if  you  wish  to  know  the  magnificent  purpose  which 

ii 


162  Temperance. 

you  should  have  in  view,  all  you  have  to  do  is  to  reflect  with 
me  upon  the  consequence  and  the  nature  of  intemperance, 
against  which  you  have  declared  war.  Let  me  depict  to  you, 
as  well  as  I  can,  what  intemperance  is — what  drunkenness  is ; 
and  then  I  shall  have  laid  a  solid  foundation  for  the  appeal 
which  I  make  to  you,  not  only  personally  to  persevere  in  this 
glorious  cause  of  temperance,  but  to  try,  every  man  of  you,  like 
an  evangelist  of  this  holy  gospel,  to  gather  as  many  as  you  can 
of  your  friends  and  associates,  and  of  those  whom  your  influence 
reaches,  to  become  members  of  this  most  salutary  and  honorable 
body.  No  man  can  value  a  virtue  until  he  knows  the  deep 
degradation  of  the  opposite  vice. 

Now,  man  has  three  relations  :  namely,  his  relations  to  God 
who  made  him,  and  who  redeemed  him  upon  the  Cross ;  his 
relations  to  his  neighbor ;  and  his  sacred  relations  to  himself. 
Consider  the  vice  of  intemperance — how  it  affects  this  triple 
relation  of  man.  First  of  all,  my  friends,  what  is  our  relation 
to  God  ?  I  answer,  if  we  regard  Almighty  God  as  our  Creator, 
we  are  made  in  His  image  and  likeness  ;  if  we  regard  Him  as 
our  Redeemer,  we  are  His  brothers,  in  the  human  nature  which 
He  assumed  for  our  salvation.  Consider  your  relations  to  God 
as  your  Creator.  The  Almighty  God,  in  creating  all  His  other 
creatures  on  the  earth,  simply  said,  "Fiat,1' — Let  it  be — and 
the  thing  was  made.  "  Let  there  be  light,"  said  the  Almighty 
God,  breathing  over  the  darkness ;  immediately,  in  the  twink- 
ling of  an  eye,  the  glorious  sun  poured  forth  his  light ;  the 
moon  took  up  her  reflection,  which  she  was  to  bear  for  all  ages 
of  time  ;  and  every  star  appeared,  like  glittering  gems,  hanging 
in  the  newly-created  firmament  of  heaven.  God  said,  "  Let 
there  be  life,"  and  instantly  the  sea  teemed  with  its  life ;  the 
bird  took  living  wings  and  cleaved  the  air;  the  earth  teemed 
with  those  hidden  principles  of  life  that  break  forth  in  the 
spring-time,  and  cover  hill  and  dale  with  the  verdure  that 
charms  the  human  eye.  But,  when  it  was  the  question  of 
creating  man,  Almighty  God  no  longer  said,  "  Let  him  be ;" 
but  he  said — taking  counsel,  as  it  were,  with  Himself — "  Let  us 
make  man  in  our  own  image  and  likeness."  And  then  "  Unto 
His  own  image  He  made  him,  forming  his  body  from  the  slime 
of  the  earth  " — the  body  which  is  as  nothing ;  and  breathing 
from   His  divine  lips  the  breath  of  life,  which,  in  the  soul  of 


Temperance.  163 

man,  bears  the  image  of  God,  in  being  capable  of  knowledge; 
in  being  capable  of  love,  in  the  magnificent  freedom  of  will  in 
■which  God  created  man.  Behold  the  image  of  God  reflected  in 
man.  God  is  knowledge  ;  God  is  love — the  purest,  the  highest, 
the  holiest,  and  most  benevolent  love — eternal  and  infinite  love. 
God  is  freedom.  Man  has  power  of  knowledge,  in  his  intellect ; 
power  of  the  highest  and  purest  love  in  his  heart,  in  his  affec- 
tions ;  freedom  in  action.  In  these  three  we  are  the  image  of 
God. 

Now,  my  friends,  it  is  a  singular  fact  that  the  devil  may 
tempt  a  man  in  a  thousand  ways.  He  may  get  him  to  violate 
the  law  of  God  in  a  thousand  ways ;  but  he  cannot  rob  him  of 
the  Divine  image  that  the  law  of  God  set  upon  him,  in  reason, 
in  love,  and  freedom.  The  demon  of  pride  may  assail  us  ;  but 
the  proudest  man  retains  those  three  great  faculties  in  which 
his  manhood  consists;  for  man  is  the  image  of  God.  The 
image  of  God  is  in  him;  his  intelligence,  love,  and  freedom  are 
the  quintessence  of  his  magnificent  human  nature  that  the  devil 
must  respect.  Just  as  of  old  the  Lord  gave  to  the  devil  the 
power  to  strike  His  servant,  Job ;  to  afflict  him  ;  to  cover  him 
with  ulcers  ;  to  destroy  his  house  and  his  children ;  but  com- 
manded him  to  respect  his  life — not  to  touch  his  life, — so 
Almighty  God  seems  to  say  to  the  very  devils  of  hell :  "  You 
may  lead  man,  by  temptations,  into  whatsoever  sins ;  but  you 
must  respect  his  manhood  ;  he  must  still  remain  a  man."  To 
all  except  one  !  There  is  one  devil  alone — one  terrible  demon, 
alone,  who  is  able  not  only  to  rob  us  of  that  Divine  grace  by 
which  we  are  children  of  God,  but  to  rob  us  of  every  essential 
feature  of  humanity,  in  taking  away  from  us  the  intelligence  by 
which  we  know,  the  affection  by  which  we  love,  the  freedom  by 
which  we  act  as  human  beings,  as  we  are.  Who  is  that  demon  r 
Who  is  the  enemy  not  only  of  God  but  of  human  nature  ? 
Who  is  the  powerful  one  who,  alone,  has  the  attribute,  the  in- 
fernal privilege,  not  only  of  robbing  the  soul  of  grace,  but  of 
taking  from  the  whole  being — from  the  time  he  asserts  his 
dominion  there — every  vestige  and  feature  of  humanity?  It  is 
the  terrible  Demon  of  Intemperance.  He,  alone,  can  lift  up 
his  miscreated  brow  and  insult  the  Almighty  God,  not  only  as 
the  author  of  grace,  but.  as  the  very  author  of  nature.  Ever) 
other  demon  that  tempts  man  to  sin  may  exult  in  the  ruin   o* 


164  Temperance. 

the  soul ;  he  may  deride  and  insult  Almighty  God  for  the 
moment,  and  riot  in  his  triumph;  insult  Him  as  the  author  of 
that  grace  which  the  soul  has  lost.  The  demon  of  drunken- 
ness, alone,  can  say  to  Almighty  God :  "  Thou,  alone,  O  Lord, 
art  the  fountain — the  source — the  Creator  of  nature  and  of 
grace.  What  vestige  of  grace  is  here  ?  I  defy  you,  I  defy  the 
world,  to  tell  me  that  there  is  a  vestige  even  of  humanity!" 
Behold  the  drunkard.  Behold  the  image  of  God,  as  he  comes 
forth  from  the  drinking  saloon,  where  he  has  pandered  to  the 
meanest,  vilest,  and  most  degrading  of  the  senses — the  sense 
of  taste:  He  has  laid  down  his  soul  upon  the  altar  of  the 
poorest  devil  of  them  all — the  devil  of  gluttony.  Upon  that 
altar  he  has  left  his  reason,  his  affections,  and  his  freedom.  Be- 
hold him,  now,  as  he  reels  forth,  senseless  and  debauched,  from 
that  drinking-house  !  Where  is  his  humanity  ?  Where  is  the 
image  of  God  ?  He  is  unable  to  conceive  a  thought.  He  is 
unable  to  express  an  idea,  with  his  babbling  tongue,  which 
pours  forth  feebly,  like  a  child,  some  impotent,  outrageous  blas- 
phemy against  heaven  !  Where  are  his  affections?  He  is  in- 
capable of  love ;  no  generous  emotion  can  pass  through  him  ; 
no  high  and  holy  love  can  move  that  degraded,  surfeited  heart. 
The  most  that  can  come  to  him  is  the  horrible  demon  of  im- 
purity, to  stir  up  within  him  every  foulest  and  grossest  desire 
of  animal  lust.  Finally,  where  is  his  freedom?  Why,  he  is 
not  able  to  walk !  not  able  to  stand !  he  is  not  able  to  guide 
himself!  If  a  child  came  along,  and  pushed  him,  it  would 
throw  him  down.  He  has  no  freedom  left — no  will.  If,  then, 
the  image  of  the  Lord  in  man  be  intelligence — in  the  heart  and 
in  the  will — I  say  this  man  is  no  man.  He  is  a  standing  re- 
proach to  our  humanity.  He  is  a  deeper  and  bitterer  degrada- 
tion to  us  even  than  the  absurd  theory  of  Darwin,  the  English 
philosopher,  who  tells  us  that  we  are  descended  from  apes.  I 
would  rather  consider  my  ancestor  an  ape  than  see  him  lying 
in  the  kennel,  a  drunken  man.  Such  a  one  have  I  seen.  I 
have  seen  a  man  in  the  streets,  lying  there  drunk — beastly 
drunk ;  and  I  have  seen  the  very  dogs  come  and  look  at  him — 
smell  him — wag  their  tails,  and  walk  off.  They  could  walk,  but 
he  could  not. 

And  is  this  the  image  of  God  ?    Oh,  Father  in  heaven  !   far  be 
it  from  me  to  outrage  Thee  by  saying  that  such  a  beast  as  this 


Temperance.  165 

is  Thy  image  !  No  ;  he  is  no  longer  the  image  of  God,  because 
he  has  lost  his  intelligence.  What  says  the  Holy  Ghost, — "  Man 
when  he  was  in  honor  understood  not — he  hath  been  compared 
to  senseless  beasts  and  made  like  to  them,"  no  longer  the  image 
of  God,  for  his  intelligence  is  gone — but  only  a  brute  beast. 

And  if  such  be  the  outrage  that  this  demon  of  intemperance 
is  able  to  put  upon  God,  the  Creator,  what  shall  we  say  of  the 
outrage  upon  God  as  the  Redeemer  ?  Not  contented  with  being 
our  Creator  and  our  Sovereign  Lord  and  Master, — with  having 
conferred  upon  us  the  supreme  honor  of  being  in  some  degree 
like  unto  Him, — Almighty  God,  in  the  greatness  of  His  love, 
came  down  from  heaven  and  became  man ;  was  incarnate  by  the 
Holy  Ghost  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  was  made  man.  He  became 
our  brother,  our  fellow  and  companion  in  Nature.  He  took  to 
Him  our  humanity  in  all  its  integrity,  save  and  except  the  human 
person.  He  took  a  human  soul,  a  human  body,  a  human  heart, 
human  affections,  human  relations — for  He  was  truly  the  Son 
of  His  Virgin  Mother.  And  thus  He  became,  says  St.  Paul, 
"the  first-born  amongst  many  brothers."  He  who  yesterday 
was  but  a  worm,  a  mere  creature  of  God,  a  mere  servant  of 
God,  and  nothing  more, — to-day,  in  the  sacred  humanity  of  our 
Lord,  becomes  associated  in  brotherhood  with  Christ,  the  Son 
of  the  Eternal  God.  As  such  He  can  share  our  sorrows  and  our 
joys:  we  may  give  Him  human  pain  and  human  pleasure.  If 
we  are  all  that  true  men  ought  to  be — all  that  Christian  men 
ought  to  be — the  honor  and  glory  goes  to  Christ,  the  author 
and  finisher  of  our  faith,  who  in  His  sacred  humanity  purchased 
grace  for  us  at  the  cost  of  His  most  precious  blood.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  we  degrade  ourselves,  cast  ourselves  down,  lie  down 
at  the  feet  of  the  devils,  and  allow  them  to  trample  upon  us — 
then,  my  dear  friends,  the  dishonor  falls  not  only  upon  us,  but 
through  us  upon  the  nature  and  humanity  that  Christ  our  Lord 
holds,  as  He  is  seated  at  the  right  hand  of  His  Father.  Oui 
shame  falls  upon  Him,  because  He  was  man ;  and  so  our  honor, 
our  sanctity,  is  reflected  back  from  Him,  because  it  can  only 
come  to  us  from  His  most  sacred  humanity.  Therefore,  I  addf 
that  this  sin  of  drunkenness  has  a  particular  and  a  special  enor- 
mity in  the  Christian  man ;  for,  what  we  are,  Christ,  the  Son  of 
God,  became.  We  are  men ;  He  became  man.  If  we  degrade 
ourselves  to  the  level  of  the  beasts  of  the  field,  and   beneath 


1 66  Temperance. 

them,  then  we  are  degrading,  casting  down,  that  sacred  human, 
ity  which  Christ  took  to  Him  at  His  Incarnation.  The  Son  of 
God  respected  it  so  much — He  respected  human  nature  so 
much — that  He  took  it  with  Him  into  heaven,  and  seated  it  at 
the  right  Jiand  of  God.  The  drunkard  disrespects  the  same 
nature  so  much,  that  he  drags  it  down  and  puts  it  beneath  the 
very  beasts  of  the  field.  Therefore,  a  special  and  specific  dis- 
honor does  this  sin,  above  all  others,  do  to  our  Lord  and  Re- 
deemer. More  than  this,  the  Son  of  God  became  man,  in  order 
that  He  might  bring  down  from  heaven  the  mercy  and  the  grace 
that  was  necessary  for  our  salvation.  The  mercy  of  God,  my 
friends,  is  His  highest  attribute,  surpassing  all  His  works.  The 
greatest  delight  of  God  is  to  exercise  that  mercy.  "  It  is  natu- 
ral to  Him,"  says  the  great  St.  Thomas  Aquinas — and,  there- 
fore, it  is  the  first  of  His  works ;  for  it  is  the  first  prompting  of 
the  nature  of  God.  The  mercy  of  God  prompted  Him  to  become 
man.  Now,  the  greatest  injury  that  any  man  can  offer  to  Christ 
our  Redeemer,  is  to  tie  up  His  hands  and  to  oblige  Him  to  re- 
fuse the  exercise  of  His  mercy.  This  is  the  greatest  injury  we 
can  offer  to  God ;  to  tell  the  Almighty  God  that  He  must  not 
— nay,  that  He  cannot — be  merciful.  There  is  only  one  sin,  and 
one  sinner,  alone,  that  can  do  it.  That  one  sin  is  drunkenness  ; 
that  one  sinner  is  the  drunkard — the  only  man  that  has  the 
omnipotence  of  sin,  the  infernal  power  to  tie  up  the  hands  of 
God,  to  oblige  that  God  to  refuse  him  mercy.  I  need  not  prove 
this  to  you.  You  all  know  it.  No  matter  what  sin  a  man  com- 
mits— if,  in  the  very  act  of  committing  it,  the  Almighty  God 
strikes  him — one  moment  is  enough  to  make  an  act  of  contri- 
tion, to  shed  one  tear  of  sorrow,  and  to  save  the  soul.  The 
murderer,  even  though  expiring  with  his  hands  reddened  with 
his  victim's  blood,  can  send  forth  one  cry  for  mercy,  and  in  that 
cry  be  saved.  The  robber,  stricken  down  in  the  very  midst  of 
his  misdeeds,  can  cry  for  mercy  on  his  soul.  The  impure  man, 
even  while  he  is  revelling  in  his  impurity,  if  he  feel  the  chilly 
hand  of  death  laid  upon  him,  and  cry  out,  "  God  be  merciful 
to  me  a  sinner !  " — in  that  cry  may  be  saved.  The  drunkard 
alone — alone  amongst  all  sinners — lies  there  dying  in  his  drunk- 
enness. If  all  the  priests  and  all  the  bishops  in  the  Church  of 
God  were  there,  they  could  not  give  that  man  pardon  or  abso- 
lution of  his  sins,  because  he  is  incapable  of  it, — because  he  is 


Temperance.  167 

not  a  man!  Sacraments  are  for  men,  let  them  be  ever  so  sinful 
— provided  that  they  be  men.  You  might  as  well  absolve  the 
four-footed  beast  as  lift  your  priestly  hand,  my  brethren,  over 
the  drunkard !  I  remember  once  being  called  to  attend  a  dying 
man.  He  was  dying  of  delirium  tremens ;  and  he  was  drunk. 
I  went  in.  He  was  raving  of  hell,  devils,  and  flames ;  no  God ! 
no  mercy !  I  stood  there.  The  wife  was  there,  breaking  her 
heart.  The  children  were  there  weeping.  Said  I;  "  Why  did 
you  send  for  me  for  this  man?  What  can  I  do  for  him?  He 
is  drunk  !  He  is  dying ;  but  he  is  drunk  !  If  the  Pope  of  Rome 
were  here,  what  could  he  do  for  him,  until  he  gets  sober?"  The 
one  sin  that  puts  a  man  outside  the  pale  of  God's  mercy  !  Long 
as  that  arm  of  God  is,  it  is  not  long  enough  to  touch  with  a  mer- 
ciful hand  the  sinner  who  is  in  the  state  of  drunkenness.  And 
this  is  the  greatest  injury,  I  say  again,  that  a  man  can  offer  to 
God,  to  say  to  Him,  "  Lord,  You  may  be  just.  I  know  that  You 
don't  wish  to  exercise  Your  justice.;  but  You  may.  You  may 
be  omnipotent ;  You  may  have  every  attribute.  But  there  is 
one  that  You  must  not  have,  and  must  not  exercise  in  my  regard. 
I  put  it  out  of  Your  power.  And  that  is  the  attribute  that  You 
love  the  most  of  all — the  attribute  of  mercy."  Thus  the  Father 
in  heaven  sees — Christ  sees — in  the  drunkard,  His  worst  and 
most  terrible  enemy.  If,  then,  I  say  to  you,  as  Christian  men, 
and  as  Catholic  men,  if  you  love  the  God  who  created  you — if 
you  love  the  God  who  redeemed  you — if  you  respect  the  sacred 
image  of  God,  which  is  in  you — and  if  you  respect  the  mercy 
of  God,  which  alone  can  save  you — oh,  my  friends,  I  ask  you 
for  all  this,  not,  indeed,  to  be  sober  men — (for,  thank  God,  you 
are  that  already) — but  to  be  zealous,  to  be  burning  with  zeal  to 
make  every  man,  and  especially  every  Catholic  man,  sober  and 
temperate  as  you  are,  by  every  influence  and  every  power  which 
you  may  bring  to  bear  upon  him.  I  say  that,  in  this,  every 
Catholic  man  ought  to  be  like  a  priest.  When  it  is  a  question 
of  confession  or  communion — when  it  is  a  question  of  any  other 
Christian  virtue — it  is  for  us  priests  to  preach  it ;  it  is  for  us  to 
impress  it  upon  you ;  but,  when  it  is  a  question  of  the  virtue 
which  is  necessary  for  our  common  humanity  ;  when  it  is  a  ques- 
tion of  putting  away  the  sin  that  robs  a  man  even  of  his  human 
nature  and  his  manhood — every  man  of  you  is  as  much  a  priest 
of  that  manhood  as  I  am,  or  any  man  who  is  within  this  sanctu- 


1 68  Temperance. 

ary.     We  are  priests  of  the  Gospel ;  you,  my  friends,  as  well  as 
we,  are  priests  of  humanity. 

Consider  next  the  relation  of  man  as  to  his  neighbor.  We 
are  bound  .to  love  our  neighbor — every  man — I  don't  care  who 
he  is,  or  what  he  may  be — he  may  "be  a  Turk,  he  may  be  a 
Mormon,  he  may  be  an  Infidel — but  we  must  love  him ;  we  are 
bound  to  love  him.  For  instance,  we  are  bound  to  regret  any 
evil  that  happens  to  him ;  because  we  are  bound  to  have  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  love  for  all  men.  Well,  in  that  charity  which 
binds  us  to  our  neighbor,  there  is  a  greater  and  a  lesser  degree. 
A  man  must  love  with  Christian  charity  all  men.  But  there  are 
certain  individuals  that  have  a  special  claim  on  his  love, — that 
he  is  bound,  for  instance,  not  only  to  love  but  to  honor,  to  wor- 
ship, to  maintain.  And  who  are  they  ?  The  father  and  the 
mother  that  bore  us ;  and  the  wife  that  gave  us  her  young  heart 
and  her  young  beauty ;  the  children  that  Almighty  God  gave 
us.  These,  my  friends — these  gifts  of  God  given  to  you — the 
family,  your  wife,  your  children — have  the  first  claim  upon  you, 
and  they  have  the  most  stringent  demand  upon  that  charity 
concentrated,  which,  as  Christians,  you  must  still  diffuse  to  all 
men.  Any  man  that  fails  in  his  fraternal  charity  is  no  longer  a 
child  of  God;  "  for  if  any  man  say  he  loves  God,  and  love  not 
his  neighbor,  he  is  a  liar,  and  the  truth  is  not  in  him."  Any 
man  that  hates  his  fellow-man,  or  injures  him  wilfully,  is  no 
child  of  God. 

Amongst  those,  I  say,  whom  we  are  bound  to  love,  are  the 
wife — the  children.  And  this  is  precisely  the  point  wherein  the 
drunkard,  the  intemperate  man,  shows  himself  more  hard-heart 
ed  than  the  wild  beast.  The  woman  that,  in  her  youth,  and 
modesty,  and  purity,  and  beauty,  put  her  maiden  hand  into  his 
before  the  altar  of  God,  and  swore  away  to  him  her  young  heart 
and  her  young  love ;  the  woman  who  had  the  trust  in  him  to 
take  him  for  ever  and  for  aye ;  the  woman  who,  if  you  will, 
had  the  confiding  folly  to  bind  up  with  him  all  the  dreams  that 
ever  she  had  of  happiness,  or  peace,  or  joy  in  this  world ;  the 
woman  that  said  to  him,  "  Next  to  God  and  after  God,  I  will 
let  thee  into  my  heart — and  love  thee  and  thee  alone;"  and, 
then,  before  the  altar  of  God  received  the  seal  of  sacramental 
grace  upon  that  pure  love — this  is  the  woman,  and  her  children 
and  his  children,  to  whom  the  drunkard  brings  the  most  terri* 


Temperance.  1 69 

ble  of  all  calamities — poverty,  blighted  beauty,  premature  old 
age,  misery,  a  broken  heart,  sleepless  eyes,  ragged,  wretched 
poverty  of  the  direst  form — the  woman  whom  he  swore  to  love, 
and  to  honor,  and  to  cherish,  and  to  render  her  the  homage  of  his 
true  and  manly  affection  !  Oh,  my  friends,  every  other  sin  that 
a  man  may  commit  may  bring  against  him  the  cry  of  some  soul 
scandalized ;  but  the  drunkard's  soul  must  hear  the  accusing 
voice  of  the  passionate  cry  of  misery  wrung  from  the  broken 
heart,  and  the  curse  laid  at  the  foot  of  the  altar  where  the 
sacramental  blessing  was  pronounced  when  the  young  heart  of 
the  wife  was  given  away!  Such  a  one  did  I  meet.  Hear  me. 
I  was  on  a  mission,  some  years  ago,  in  a  manufacturing  town 
in  England.  I  was  preaching  there  every  evening;  and  a  man 
came  to  me  one  night,  after  a  sermon  on  this  very  subject  of 
drunkenness.  He  came  in — a  fine  man ;  a  strapping,  healthy, 
intellectual  looking  man.  But  the  eye  was  almost  sunk  in  his 
head.  The  forehead  was  furrowed  with  premature  wrinkles. 
The  hair  was  white,  though  the  man  was  evidently  compara- 
tively young.  He  was  dressed  shabbily ;  scarce  a  shoe  to  his 
feet,  though  it  was  a  wet  night.  He  came  in  to  me  excitedly, 
after  the  sermon.  He  told  me  his  history.  "  I  don't  know," 
he  said,  "  that  there  is  any  hope  for  me  ;  but  still,  as  I  was 
listening  to  the  sermon,  I  must  speak  to  you.  If  I  don't  speak 
to  some  one  my  heart  will  break  to-night."  What  was  his 
story  ?  A  few  years  before  he  had  amassed  in  trade  twenty 
thousand  pounds,  or  one  hundred  thousand  dollars.  He  had 
married  an  Irish  girl — one  of  his  own  race  and  creed,  young, 
beautiful,  and  accomplished.  He  had  two  sons  and  a  daughter. 
He  told  me,  for  a  certain  time  everything  went  on  well.  "  At 
last,"  he  said,  "  I  had  the  misfortune  to  begin  to  drink:  neglect- 
ed my  business,  and  then  my  business  began  to  neglect  me. 
The  woman  saw  poverty  coming,  and  began  to  fret,  and  lost 
her  health.  At  last,  when  we  were  paupers,  she  sickened  and 
died.  I  was  drunk,"  he  said,  "  the  day  that  she  died.  I  sat  by 
her  bedside.  I  was  drunk  when  she  was  dying."  "  The  sons 
— what  became  of  them  ?"  "Well,"  he  said,  "  they  were  mere 
children.  The  eldest  of  them  is  no  more  than  eighteen ;  and 
they  are  both  transported  for  robbery."  "  The  girl  ?"  "  Well," 
he  said,  "  I  sent  the  girl  to  a  school  where  she  was  well  educat- 
ed.    She  came  home  to  me  when  she  was  sixteen  years  of  age, 


170  Temperance. 

a  beautiful  young  woman.  She  was  the  one  consolation  I  had ; 
but  I  was  drunk  all  the  time."  "Well,  what  became  of  her?" 
He  looked  at  me.  "  Do  you  ask  me  about  that  girl  ?"  he  said, 
'  what  became  of  her?"  And,  as  if  the  man  was  suddenly  struck 
dead,  he  fell  at  my  feet.  "  God  of  heaven !  God  of  heaven ! 
She  is  on  the  streets  to-night — a  prostitute !"  The  moment  he 
said  that  word,  he  ran  out.  I  went  after  him.  "  Oh,  no  !  Oh, 
no  !"  he  said  ;  "  there  is  no  mercy  in  heaven  for  me.  I  left  my 
child  on  the  streets !"  He  went  away,  cursing  God,  to  meet  a 
drunkard's  death.  He  had  sent  a  broken-hearted  mother  to 
the  grave ;  he  sent  his  two  sons  to  perdition ;  he  sent  his  only 
daughter  to  be  a  living  hell ;  and  then  he  died  blaspheming 
God! 

Finally,  consider  the  evil  that  a  man  does  to  himself.  Loss 
of  health,  first.  You  know  the  drunkard's  death.  You  hear 
what  it  is.  I  have  over  and  over  again,  on  my  mission — twenty- 
five  years  a  priest,  naturally  enough,  I  must  have  met  all  sorts 
of  cases — I  have,  over  and  over  again,  had  to  attend  many  dy- 
ing from  drink  ;  and  I  protest  to  you,  I  have  never  yet  attended 
a  man  dying  of  delirium  tremetis,  that,  for  a  fortnight  after,  I 
was  not  struck  as  with  an  ague  at  what  I  had  witnessed.  On 
one  occasion,  a  priest  attended  a  man.  He  had  sense  enough 
to  sit  up  in  the  bed  and  say,  "You  are  a  priest  ?"  He  said, 
"Yes,  I  am."  "Oh,"  he  said,  "I  am  glad  of  it.  Tell  me;  I 
want  to  know  one  thing.  I  want  to  know  if  you  have  the 
Blessed  Sacrament  with  you?"  "I  have."  The  moment  he 
said  so,  the  man  sprang  out  of  the  bed,  on  to  the  floor,  crying 
out  like  a  maniac :  "  Oh  !  take  away  that  God !  take  away 
that  God  !  That  man  has  God  with  him.  There  is  no  God  for 
me !"  He  was  dead  before'the  priest  left  the  room,  crying  out 
to  the  last,  "There  is  no  God  for  me  !" 

The  drunkard  loses  health,  loses  reputation,  loses  his  friends, 
loses  his  wife  and  family,  loses  domestic  happiness,  loses  every 
thing ;  And  in  addition  to  this,  brings  upon  himself  the 
slavery  that  no  power  on  earth,  and  scarcely — be  it  said  with 
reverence — any  power  in  heaven,  can  seem  to  be  able  to  de- 
stroy ;  all  this  is  the  injury  that  man  inflicts  upon  himself  by 
this  terrible  sin — the  worst  of  all,  as  you  may  easily  imagine. 
What  a  glorious  mission  yours  is !  You  have  raised  the  stand- 
ard  in  defiance  to  this  demon   that  is  destroying   the  whole 


Temperance.  1 7 1 

world.  You  have  declared  that  your  names  shall  be  enrolled  as 
a  monument  against  the  vice  of  drunkenness.  You  have, 
thereby,  asserted  the  glory  of  God  in  His  image— man.  The 
glory  of  your  humanity  is  restored  by  the  angel  of  sobriety  and 
temperance  ;  the  glory  of  Christ  rescued  from  the  dishonor 
which  is  put  upon  Him  by  the  drunkard,  amongst  all  other  sin- 
ners ;  the  glory  of  the  Christian  woman  retrieved  and  honored, 
as  every  year  adds  a  new,  mellowing  grace  to  the  declining 
beauty  which  passes  away  with  youth ;  the  glory  of  the 
family,  in  which  the  true  Christian  son  is  the  reflection  of  the 
virtues  of  his  true  and  Christian  father.  Finally,  the  glory  of 
your  own  souls,  and  the  assurance  of  a  holy  life  and  a  happy 
death.  All  this  is  involved  in  the  profession  which  you  make 
to  be  the  Apostles  and  the  silent  but  eloquent  propagators  of 
this  holy  virtue — Temperance.  Therefore  do  I  congratulate 
you  on  the  part  of  God  who  created  you.  I  congratulate  you 
for  the  regard  that  you  have  for  the  image  of  that  God,  on  the 
part  of  that  God  who  redeemed  you.  I,  His  most,  unworthy 
but  anointed  minister,  have  to  congratulate  you  on  the  respect 
which  you  have  for  the  humanity  which  the  Lord  Himself  took 
to  Him.  On  the  part  of  your  family  and  your  friends,  and  of 
the  society  of  which  you  form  so  prominent  a  feature,  I  con- 
gratulate you  for  the  happiness  and  domestic  comfort  which 
this  virtue  will  insure  to  you  and  to  yours.  On  the  part  of 
dear,  and  faithful,  and  loved  old  Ireland,  as  an  Irish  priest,  I 
congratulate  you  for  your  manly  effort  to  raise  up  our  people 
and  our  race  from  a  vice  which  has  lain  at  the  root  of  all  our 
national  misfortunes  and  misery.  On  the  part  of  your  bishop 
— holy,  loving,  laborious,  and  earnest — whose  joy  and  whose 
crown  you  are — I  congratulate  you  for  the  comfort  and  the  joy 
that  you  will  bring  to  him,  to  enable  him  to  bear  up  the  burden 
of  the  spiritual  solicitude  of  your  souls  and  of  the  Church.  As 
a  priest,  for  every  highest  and  holiest  cause — for  every  purest 
source  from  which  human  joy  can  come — I  congratulate  you, 
my  dear  friends,  and  I  ask  you  to  persevere  in  this  glorious 
effort  in  the  cause  of  temperance — the  first,  the  greatest  of 
moral  virtues — the  grandest  virtue  which  enshrines  and  pre- 
serves in  it  the  integrity  of  our  humanity,  and  prepares  that 
humanity  to  receive  the  high,  the  Divine  gifts  of  grace  here, 
and  of  glory  hereafter    in   the   everlasting  kingdom  of  God. 


1 72  Temperance. 

Finally,  sc  deep  is  the  interest  I  take  in  this  subject,  that  I 
shall  be  only  most  happy,  on  every  occasion,  when  my  services 
can  be  of  any  benefit  or  comfort  to  you,  to  render  those  ser- 
vices to  you  in  the  sacred  cause  of  temperance. 

The  effect  of  Father  Burke's  splendid  address  upon  the  vast  congregation 
is  indescribable. 

As  he  proceeded,  the  audience,  by  one  impulse,  stood  up  in  their  seats, 
and  crowded  up  through  the  aisles,  as  if  each  one  were  anxious  to  get  near 
the  speaker,  as  if  to  fix  his  very  features  on  their  memories.  Bishop  Bay- 
ley  listened  with  the  closest  attention  to  every  word  the  good  priest  uttered, 
and  seemed  highly  pleased  and  edified ;  and  at  the  conclusion  of  the  address 
warmly  congratulated  Father  Burke,  as  did  also  the  reverend  pastors  pre- 
sent. On  the  occasion  of  his  lecture  in  the  evening,  the  bishop  expressed 
the  opinion,  that  if  Father  Burke's  words  upon  this  subject  could  be  laid 
before  the  eyes  of  every  man,  and  woman,  and  child  in  the  community, 
they  would  be  almost  sufficient  to  banish  the  demon  of  intemperance  from 
every  Catholic  household  in  the  land.  This  is,  indeed,  a  remarkable  and 
generous  compliment  to  the  great  preacher's  effort. 

The  regular  business  of  the  Convention  was  now  entered  upon,  the  bishop 
opening  the  proceedings  with  prayer. 

Mr.  O'Brien,  the  President,  on  calling  the  Convention  to  order,  stated 
that  the  following  resolution  had  been  offered  for  adoption : 

Resolved,  That  the  delegates  and  citizens  here  present  earnestly  beg  of 
Father  Burke  to  bear  with  him  when  he  goes  from  our  midst,  and  to  take 
with  him,  back  to  the  old  land,  the  warmest  thanks  of  our  hearts  for  the 
service  and  the  honor  he  has  done  the  Catholics  of  the  State  of  New  Jersey 
by  his  magnificent  discourse  before  the  "Total  Abstinence  Union"  this 
day ;  and  that  we,  in  the  name  of  our  fellow-Catholics  of  adjoining  coun- 
ties, urgently  request  of  him  to  meet  our  people  in  aggregate  mass  Con- 
vention, at  some  central  and  convenient  point,  to  enable  them  to  profit  by 
the  wisdom  and  genius  with  which  he  has  treated  the  temperance  question. 

The  President  supplemented  the  resolution  with  grateful  reference  to  the 
generous  action  of  their  distinguished  visitor,  and  of  their  own  bishop  and 
clergy ;  and  then  called  for  the  sense  of  the  assembly  upon  the  subject  of 
the  resolution,  when  there  arose  all  over  the  church  one  solid  and  resound- 
ing "  aye,"  loud  enough,  as  it  were,  to  carry  the  thanks  which  it  embodied 
to  Father  Burke's  native  hills,  in  the  mother-land  beyond  the  sea. 


THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CATHOLIC 
CHARITY. 


[Delivered  in  the  Church  of  Our  Lady  of  Grace,  Hoboken,  N.  J.,  on  Thursday, 
April  25  th,  1872,  in  aid  of  St.  Mary's  Hospital,  in  charge  of  the  Sisters  of  the  Poor.] 

Y  dear  Friends  :  We  all  read  the  Scriptures  ;  but  of  the 
many  who  read  them,  how  few  there  are  who  take  the 
trouble  of  thinking  profoundly  on  what  they  read  ! 
Any  one  single  passage  of  the  Scriptures  represents, 
in  a  few  words,  a  portion  of  the  infinite  wisdom  of  the  Almighty 
God.  Consequently,  any  one  sentence  of  those  inspired  writings 
should  furnish  the  Christian  mind  with  sufficient  matter  for 
thought  for  many  and  many  a  long  day.  Now,  we,  Catholic 
priests,  are  obliged,  every  day  of  our  lives,  in  our  daily  office,  to 
recite  a  large  portion  of  the  divine  and  inspired  Word  of  God, 
in  the  form  of  prayer.  Never  was  there  a  greater  mistake  than 
that  made  by  those  who  think  that  Catholics  do  not  read  the 
Scriptures.  All  the  prayers  that  we,  priests,  have  to  say — seven 
times  a  day  approaching  the  Almighty  God — are  all  embodied 
in  the  words  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  ;  and  not  only  are  we 
obliged  to  recite  them  as  prayers,  but  we  are  also  obliged  to 
make  them  the  subject  of  our  daily  and  our  constant  thought. 
•j  I  purpose,  therefore,  in  approaching  this  great  subject  of  the 
Attributes  of  Christian  Charity,  to  put  before  you  a  text  of 
Scripture  which  many  of  you  have,  no  doubt,  read  over  and 
over  again— viz. :  the  first  verse  of  the  Fortieth  Psalm,  in  which 
the  Psalmist  says  :  "  Blessed  is  the  man  that  understandeth 
concerning  the  needy  and  the  poor." 

Now,  if  you  reflect,  my  dear  friends,  you  will  find  that,  at 
first  sight,  it  seems  strange  to  speak  of  that  man  as  "  blessed" 


174  The  Attributes  of  Catholic  Charity, 

that  understandeth  concerning  the  needy  and  the  poor ;  there 
seems  to  be  so  little  mystery  about  them  ;  they  meet  us  at  every 
corner ;  put  their  wants  and  their  necessities  before  us ;  they 
force  the  sight  of  their  misery  upon  our  eyes ;  and  the  most 
fastidious  and  the  most  unwilling  are  obliged  to  look  upon  their 
sorrows,  and  to  hear  the  voice  of  their  complaint  and  their  suf- 
ferings. What  mystery  is  there,  then,  in  the  needy  and  the 
poor?  What  mystery  can  there  be?  And  yet,  in  the  needy, 
and  the  poor,  and  the  stricken,  there  is  so  profound  a  mystery 
that  the  Almighty  God  declared  that  few  men  understand  it ; 
and  "  blessed  is  he  that  is  able  to  fathom  its  depths."  What  is 
this  mystery  ?  What  is  this  subject — the  one  which  I  have  come 
to  explain  to  you  ?  A  deep  and  mysterious  subject  ;  one  that 
presents  to  us  far  more  of  the  wisdom  of  the  designs  of  God 
than  might  appear  at  first.  What  is  the  mystery  which  is  hid- 
den in  the  needy  and  the  poor,  and  in  which  we  are  pronounced 
"  blessed"  if  we  can  only  understand  it  thoroughly,  and,  like 
true  men,  act  upon  that  understanding  ?  Let  me  congratulate 
you,  first,  that,  whether  you  understand  this  mystery  or  not, 
your  presence  here  to-night  attests  that  you  wish  to  act  upon 
it ;  that  yours  are  the  instincts  of  Christian  charity ;  that  the 
needy  and  the  poor  and  the  stricken  ones  of  God  have  only  to 
put  forth  their  claims  to  you,  at  the  pure  hands  of  these  spouses 
of  our  Lord,  and  you  are  ready,  in  the  compassion  and  the  ten- 
derness of  heart  which  is  the  inheritance  of  the  children  of 
Christ,  to  fill  their  hands,  that  your  blessings  may  find  their  way 
to  the  needy  and  the  poor. 

And  yet,  although  so  prompt  in  answering  the  call  of  charity, 
perhaps  it  will  interest  you,  or  instruct  you,  that  I  should  invite 
your  consideration  to  this  mystery.  What  is  it  ?  In  order  to 
comprehend  it,  let  us  reflect.  The  Apostle,  St.  Paul,  writing  to 
his  recently-converted  Christians,  lays  down  this  great  rule  for 
them  :  That,  for  the  Christian  man,  there  are  three  virtues  which 
form  the  very  life  and  essence  of  his  Christianity  ;  and  these  are 
— not  the  virtues  of  prudence,  nor  of  justice,  nor  of  highminded- 
ness,  nor  of  nobleness,  nor  of  fortitude — no  ;  but  they  are  the 
supernatural  virtues  of  Faith,  Hope,  and  Love.  "  Now,  there 
remain  to  you,  brethren,"  he  says,  "  Faith,  Hope,  and  Charity — 
these  three ;  but  the  greatest  of  these  is  Charity."  The  life  of 
the  Christian,  therefore,  must  be  the  life  of  a  believer — a  "  man 


The  Attributes  of  Catholic  Charity.  175 

of  Faith."  It  must  be  a  hopeful  life — an  anticipative  lite — a 
life  that  looks  beyond  the  mere  horizon  of  the  present  time  into 
the  far-stretching  eternity  that  goes  beyond  it — a  life  of  hope ; 
but,  most  of  all,  it  must  be  a  life  of  divine  love.  Those  are  the 
three  elements  of  the  Christian  character.  Nowadays,  it  is  the 
fashion  to  pervert  these  three  virtues.  The  man  of  faith  is  no 
longer  the  simple  believer.  Faith  means  a  bowing  down  of  the 
intellect  to  things  that  we  cannot  understand,  because  they  are 
mysteries  of  God.  But  the  idea  of  religion,  nowadays,  is  to 
reason  and  not  believe.  The  Apostle,  if  he  were  writing  to  the 
men  of  this  nineteenth  century,  would  be  obliged  to  say  • 
"  Brethren,  now  there  remain  to  you  argument  and  reason  ;" 
but  not  faith  ;  for  faith  means,  in  the  mind  of  the  same  Apostle, 
the  humbling,  unto  full  humiliation,  of  intelligence,  before  the 
mystery  which  was  hidden  for  ages  with  Christ  in  God.  "  Faith," 
says  St.  Paul,  "  is  the  argument  of  things  that  appear  not." 
The  Catholic  Church,  nowadays,  is  called  the  enslaver  of  the 
intelligence — the  incubus  upon  the  mind  of  man.  And  why  ? 
Because  she  asks  him  to  believe.  Mind — men  of  intelligence 
who  listen  to  me — because  she  asks  a  man  to  believe  ;  because 
she  says  to  him,  "  My  son,  I  cannot  explain  this  to  you  ;  it  is  a 
mystery  of  God  ;"  and  there  is  no  faith  where  there  is  no  mys- 
tery. Where  there  is  the  clear  vision,  the  comprehensive  con- 
viction of  the  intelligence,  arising  from  argumentation  and  rea- 
son, there  is  no  sacrifice  of  the  intellect — there  is  no  faith. 

Hope,  nowadays,  has  changed  its  aspect  altogether.  Men  put 
their  hopes  in  anything  rather  than  in  Christ.  It  is  only  a  few 
days  ago  I  was  speaking  to  a  very  intellectual  man.  He  was  a 
Unitarian — a  man  of  deep  learning  and  profound  research. 
Speaking  with  him  of  the  future,  he  said  to  me :  "  Oh,  Father, 
my  future  is  the  ennoblement  of  the  human  race ;  the  grandeur 
of  the  '  coming  man* ;  the  perfect  development,  by  every  scien- 
tific attainment,  by  every  grand  quality  that  can  ennoble  him, 
of  the  man  who  is  to  be  formed  out  of  the  civilization  and  the 
progress  and  the  scientific  attainments  of  this  nineteenth  cen- 
tury." That  was  his  language  ;  and  I  answered  him  and  said  : 
"  My  dear  sir,  my  hope  is  to  see  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  shining 
forth  in  all  my  fellow-men  here,  that  He  may  shine  in  them  for- 
ever hereafter.     I  have  no  other  hope." 

The  charity  of  to-day  has  changed  its  aspect.     It  has  become 


176  The  Attributes  of  Catholic  Charity. 

a  mere  human  virtue.  It  is  compassionate,  I  grant  you ;  but 
not  with  the  compassion  that  our  Lord  demands  from  His 
people.  It  is  benevolent,  I  am  willing  to  grant  you.  We  live 
in  an  age  of  benevolence.  I  bow  down  before  that  human 
virtue ;  and  I  am  glad  to  behold  it.  I  was  proud  of  my  fellow- 
men,  seeing  the  readiness  and  generosity  with  which,  for  instance, 
they  came  to  the  relief  of  the  great  burned  city  on  the  shores 
of  the  northern  lake.  I  am  proud  when  I  come  here  to  hear 
New  York  and  Jersey  City  and  Hoboken  called  "cities  of  chari- 
ties." It  is  the  grandest  title  that  they  could  have.  But  when 
I  come  to  analyze  that  charity — when  I  come  to  look  at  that 
charity  through  the  microscope  that  the  Son  of  God  has  put  in 
my  hands,  viz. : — the  light  of  divine  faith — I  find  all  the  divine 
traits  disappear,  and  it  remains  only  a  human  virtue ;  relieving 
the  poor,  yet  not  recognizing  the  virtue  that  reposes  in  them  ; 
alleviating  their  sufferings,  touching  them  with  the  hand  of  kind- 
ness, or  of  benevolence,  but  not  with  the  reverential,  loving 
hand  of  faith  and  of  sacrifice. 

On  the  other  hand,  loudly  protesting  against  this  spirit  of 
our  age,vwhich  admits  the  bad,  and  spoils  the  good  ;  which  lets 
in  sin,  and  then  tries  to  deprive  of  its  sacramental  character 
the  modicum  of  virtue  that  remains — protesting  against  all 
this,  stands  the  great  Catholic  Church,  and  says :  "  Children 
of  men,  children  of  God,  Faith,  Hope,  Charity,  must  be  the 
life  of  you ;  but  your  Faith  and  your  Hope  must  be  the 
foundation  of  your  Charity ;  for  the  greatest  of  these  virtues  is 
Charity." 

And  why  ?  What  is  Faith  ?  Faith  is  an  act  of  human  in- 
telligence ;  looking  up  for  the  light  that  cometh  from  on  high — 
from  the  bosom  of  God,  from  the  eternal  wisdom  of  God. 
Recognizing  God  in  that  light,  Faith  catches  a  gleam  of  Him, 
and  rejoices  in  its  knowledge.  Hope  is  an  act  of  the  will,  striv- 
ing after  God,  clinging  to  His  promises,  and  trying,  by  realizing 
the  conditions,  to  realize  the  glory  which  is  the  burden  of  that 
promise.  Charity,  alone,  succeeds  in  laying  hold  of  God.  The 
God  whom  faith  catches  a  glimpse  of — the  God  whom  hope 
strains  after — charity  seizes  and  makes  its  own.  And,  there- 
fore,  "  the  greatest  of  these  is  charity."  When  the  veil  shall 
fall  from  the  face  of  God,  and  when  we  shall  behold  Him  in 
heaven,  even  as  He  is  and  as  He  sees  us,  there  shall  be  no  more 


The  Attributes  of  Catholic  Charity.  177 

faith  ;  it  shall  be  absorbed  in  vision.  When  that  which  we  strain 
after,  and  hope  for,  to-day,  shall  be  given  us,  there  shall  be  no 
more  hope.  It  shall  be  lost  in  fruition.  But  the  charity  that 
seizes  upon  God  to-day,  shall  hold  for  all  eternity.  Charity, 
alone,  shall  remain,  the  very  life  of  the  elect  of  God.  And, 
therefore,  "  the  greatest  of  these  is  charity." 

Are  there  amongst  you,  this  evening,  any  who  are  not  Catho- 
lics ?  If  there  be,  you  may  imagine  that  because  I  come  before 
you  in  the  garb  of  a  Dominican  friar  of  the  thirteenth  century 
— with  seven  hundred  years  not  only  of  the  traditions  of  holi- 
ness, but  even  of  historic  responsibility  on  my  shoulders,  in 
virtue  of  the  habit  that  I  wear — you  may  imagine  that  I  come 
amongst  you,  perhaps,  with  an  estranged  heart  and  embittered 
spirit  against  those  without  the  pale  of  my  holy,  great,  loving 
mother,  the  Church  of  God — for  which,  some  day,  God  grant  it 
may  be  my  privilege  to  die.  But  no  !  If  there  be  one  here  to- 
night who  is  not  a  Catholic,  I  tell  him  that  I  love  in  him  every 
virtue  that  he  possesses.  I  tell  him  "  I  hope  for  you,  that  you 
will  draw  near  to  the  light,  recognize  it,  and  enter  into  the 
glorious  halls  illuminated  by  the  Lamb  of  God — the  Jerusa- 
lem of  God  upon  earth,  which  needs  not  the  sun  nor  the 
moon,  '  for  the  Lamb  is  the  lamp  thereof.'  "  And  most  assured- 
ly I  love  him.  But  I  ask  you,  my  friends,  have  you  faith?  Have 
you  simple  belief — the  bowing  down  of  the  intelligence  to  the 
admission  of  a  mystery  into  your  minds — acknowledging  its 
truth — whilst  you  cannot  explain  it  to  your  reason  ?  Have  you 
faith,  my  beloved? — the  faith  that  humbles  a  man— the  faith 
that  makes  a  man  intellectually  as  a  little  child,  sitting  down  at 
the  awful  feet  of  the  Saviour,  speaking  to  that  child,  through 
His  Church?  If  you  have  not  this  faith,  but  if  you  go  groping 
for  an  argument  here  or  an  argument  there,  trying  to  build 
upon  a  human  foundation  the  supernatural  structure  of  divine 
belief — then,  I  ask  you,  how  can  you  have  hope  ?  seeing  that 
Almighty  God  stands  before  you  and  says :  "  Without  Faith  it 
is  impossible  to  please  me ;  without  Faith  it  is  impossible  to 
approach  me  ;  without  Faith  you  must  be  destroyed  ;  for  I  have 
said  it — and  my  word  cannot  fail — he  that  believeth  not  shall  be 
condemned."  And  if  you  have  not  Faith  and  Hope — the  found- 
ation— how  can  you  have  the  superstructure  of  divine  Charity  ? 
How  can  we  believe  God  unless  we  know  him  ?     How  can  we 


178  The  Attributes  of  Catholic  Charity. 

love  Him  unless  in  proportion  as  we  know  Him  ?     "  Oh,  God, 
exclaimed  the  great  St.  Augustine,  "let  me  know  Thee,  and 
know  Thee  well,  that  I  may  love  Thee  and  love  Thee  well !" 

Now,  these  being  the  three  virtues  that  belong  to  the  Chris- 
tian character,  let  us  see  how  far  the  mystery  which  is  in  the 
needy  and  the  poor  enters  into  these  considerations  of  Faith, 
Hope,  and  Love.  Certain  it  is  that  the  charity  which  the 
Almighty  God  commands  us  to  have — that  is  to  say,  the  love 
which  He  commands  us  to  have  for  Himself — is  united  to  the 
other  commandment  of  the  love  that  the  Christian  man  must 
have  for  his  neighbor.  Certain  also  it  is,  that  the  poorer,  the 
more  prostrate,  the  more  helpless  that  neighbor  is,  the  stronger 
becomes  his  claim  upon  our  love.  Thirdly :  it  is  equally  cer- 
tain from  the  Scriptures  that  the  charity  must  not  be  a  mere 
sentiment  of  benevolence,  a  mere  feeling  of  compassion,  but  it 
must  be  the  strong,  the  powerful  hand  extended  to  benefit,  to 
console,  and  to  uplift  the  stricken,  the  powerless,  and  the  poor. 
"  For,"  says  St.  John,  "  let  us  not  love  in  word,  or  in  tongue. 
but  in  deed  and  in  truth."  And  he  adds:  "  He  that  hath  the 
substance  of  the  world,  and  shall  see  his  brother  in  need,  and 
shall  shut  up  his  bowels  from  him ;  how  doth  the  charity  of 
God  abide  in  him  ?"  Therefore,  your  charity  must  be  a  practi- 
cal and  an  earnest  charity.  Such  being  the  precept  of  God 
with  respect  to  the  needy  and  the  poor,  let  us  see  how  far  faith 
and  hope  -become  the  substratum  of  that  charity  which  must 
move  us  towards  them.  What  does  faith  tell  us  about  these 
poor?  If  we  follow  the  example  of  the  world,  building  up 
great  prisons,  paying  physicians,  paying  those  whom  it  deems 
worth  while  to  pay  for  attending  the  poor,  the  sick,  and  the 
sorrowful — if  we  consult  the  world,  building  up  its  work-houses, 
immuring  the  poor  there  as  if  poverty  was  a  crime — separating 
the  husband  from  the  wife,  and  the  mother  from  her  children — 
wc  see  no  trace  here  of  Divine  faith.  And  why?  Because 
Divine  faith  must  always  respect  its  object.  Faith  is  the  virtue 
by  which  we  catch  a  gleam  of  God.  Do  we  catch  a  gleam  of 
Him  in  His  poor?  If  so,  they  claim  our  veneration,  tender- 
ness, and  love.  Now,  I  assert,  that  the  poor  of  God,  the 
afflicted,  the  heart-broken,  the  sick,  the  sorrowful — represent 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  upon  this  earth.  Christ,  our  Lord,  de- 
clared that  He  would  remain   upon  the  earth  and  would  never 


The  Attributes  of  Catholic  Charity.  170, 

leave  it.  "  Behold,"  He  said,  "  I  am  with  you  all  days  unto 
the  consummation  of  the  world."  Now,  in  three  ways  Christ 
fulfilled  that  promise.  First  of  all,  He  fulfilled  it  in  rema-'ning 
with  His  Church — the  abiding  spirit  of  truth  and  holiness — to 
enable  that  Church  to  be,  until  the  end  of  time,  the  infallible 
messenger  of  Divine  truth ;  that  is  to  say,  the  light  of  the  world 
— the  unceasing  and  laborious  sanctifier  of  mankind.  "  You 
are  the  light  of  the  world,"  says  Christ ;  "  you  are  the  salt  of 
the  earth.  You  are  not  only  to  illumine,  but  you  are  to  pre- 
serve and  to  purify.  In  order  that  you  may  do  this,  I  will  re- 
main with  you  all  days."  Therefore  is  He  present  in  the  Church. 
Secondly,  He  is  present  in  the  adorable  sacrament  of  the  altar, 
and  in  the  tabernacles  of  the  Church — really  and  truly — as  really 
and  truly  as  He  is  upon  the  right  hand  of  His  Father.  There- 
fore He  said,  "  I  will  remain."  And  He  indicated  how  He  was 
to  remain  when,  taking  bread  and  wine,  he  transubstantiated 
them  into  His  body  and  blood,  saying,  over  the  bread,  "  This  is 
my  Body,"  and  over  the  wine,  "  This  is  my  Blood."  But  in 
both  these  ways  Christ,  our  Lord,  remains  invisibly  upon  the 
earth.  No  man  sees  Him.  We  know  that  He  is  present  in 
the  Church ;  and,  therefore,  when  the  Church  of  God  speaks, 
we  bow  down  and  say,  "  I  believe,"  because  I  believe  and 
I  know  that  the  voice  that  speaks  to  me  re-echoes  the  voice 
of  my  God,  the  God  of  Truth.  When  Christ,  our  Lord,  is 
put  upon  that  altar,  lifted  up  in  the  hands  of  the  priest — 
lifted  up  in  holy  benediction,  we  bow  down  and  adore  the 
present  God,  saying:  "I  see  Thee  not,  O  Lord,  but  I  know 
that  behind  that  sacramental  veil  Thou  art  present,  for  Thou 
hast  said  ;  Lo,  I  am  here  !  This  is  my  Body !  This  is  my 
Blood  !" 

But,  in  a  third  way,  Christ  our  Lord  remains  upon  earth-  - 
visibly,  and  no  longer  invisible.  And  in  that  third  way  he  re- 
mains in  the  persons  of  the  poor,  the  sick,  and  the  afflicted.  He 
identifies  Himself  with  them.  Not  only  during  the  thirty-three 
years  of  His  mortal  life,  when  He  was  poor  with  the  poor,  when 
He  was  sorrowful  and  afflicted  with  the  sorrowful,  when  He 
bore  the  burden  of  their  poverty  and  the  burden  of  our  sins  on 
His  own  shoulders — not  only  was  His  place  found  amongst  the 
poor — He  who  said  "  the  birds  of  the  air  have  their  nests,  the 
beasts  of  the  field  and  the  foxes  have  their  holes — but  the  Son 


I  go  The  Attributes  of  Catholic  Charity. 

of  Man  hath  no  place  whereon  to  lay  His  head  !  "  not  only 
was  He  poor  from  the  day  that  He  was  born  in  a  stable,  until 
the  day  when,  dying  naked  upon  the  Cross  for  pure  charity,  He 
got  a  place  in  another  man's  grave — but  He  also  vouchsafed  to 
identify  Himself  with  His  poor  until  the  end  of  time,  as  if  He 
said  :  "  Do  you  wish  to  find  Me  ?  Do  you  wish  to  touch  Me 
with  your  hands  ?  Do  you  wish  to  speak  to  Me  words  of  con- 
solation and  of  love  ?  Oh,  Christian  man,  go  seek  the  poor  and 
the  naked,  the  sick,  the  hungry,  and  the  famishing !  Seek  the 
afflicted  and  the  heart-broken,  and  in  them  will  you  find  Me ; 
for,  Amen,  I  say  unto  you,  whatsoever  you  do  unto  them,  that 
you  do  unto  Me  !  "  Thus  does  Christ,  our  Lord,  identify  Him- 
self with  the  poor  and  the  Church.  He  remains  in  the  world, 
in  His  Church,  commanding  that  we  shall  obey  her — for  He  is 
God.  In  His  sacramental  presence  we  may  adore  Him  :  He  is 
God.  In  His  poor — in  the  afflicted,  naked,  hungry,  famishing, 
that  we  may  bend  down  and  lift  Him  up — He  is  God  still !  A 
most  beautiful  example  of  how  the  saints  were  able  to  realize 
this  do  we  find  recorded  in  the  life  of  one  of  the  beautiful  saints 
of  our  Dominican  Order — a  man  who  wore  this  habit.  He  was 
a  Spanish  friar.  His  name  was  Alvarez  of  Cordova.  He  was 
noted  amongst  his  brothers  for  the  wonderful  earnestness  and 
cheerfulness  with  which  he  always  sought  the  poor  and  the 
afflicted,  to  succor  and  console  them.  Well,  it  happened  upon 
a  day  that  this  man  of  God,  absorbed  in  God  and  in  prayer, 
went  forth  from  his  convent  to  preach  to  the  people,  and,  as  he 
journeyed  along  the  high-road,  he  saw,  stretched  helplessly  by 
the  roadside,  a  man  covered  with  a  hideous  leprosy — ulcerated 
from  head  to  foot — hideous  to  behold  ;  and  this  man  turned  to 
him  his  languid  eyes,  and,  with  faint  voice,  appealed  to  him  for 
mercy  and  succor.  The  sun,  in  all  its  noonday  fervor,  was  beat- 
ing down  fiercely  upon  that  stricken  man's  head.  He  was 
unable  to  move.  Every  man  that  saw  him  fled  from  him. 
The  moment  the  saint  saw  him  he  went  over  to  him  and 
knelt  down  by  his  side,  and  he  kissed  the  sores  of  the  leprous 
man.  Then  taking  off  the  outer  portion  of  our  habit — this  black 
cloak — he  laid  it  upon  the  ground,  and  he  tenderly  took  the 
poor  man  and  folded  him  in  the  cloak,  lifted  him  in  his  arms, 
and  returned  to  his  convent.  He  entered  the  convent.  He 
brought  the  leper  to  his  own  cell,  and  laid  him  on  his  own  little 


The  Attributes  of  Catholic  Charity.  181 

conventual  bed.  And,  having  laid  him  there,  he  went  off  to 
find  some  refreshment  for  him,  and  such  means  as  he  could  for 
consoling  him.  He  returned  with  some  food  and  drink  in  his 
hands,  laid  them  aside,  went  over  to  the  bed,  and  there  he  found 
the  sick  man.  He  unfolded  the  cloak  that  was  wrapped  around 
him.  Oh  !  what  is  this  that  he  beholds?  The  man's  head  wears 
a  crown  of  thorns ;  on  his  hands  and  his  feet  are  the  mark  of 
nails,  and  forth  from  the  wounded  side  streams  the  fresh  blood ' 
He  is  dead  ;  but  the  marks  of  the  Lord  are  upon  him ;  and  then 
the  saint  knew  that  the  man  whom  he  had  lifted  up  from  the 
roadside  was  Christ,  his  God  and  his  Saviour!  And  so,  with 
the  eyes  of  faith,  do  we  recognize  Christ  in  His  poor.  What 
follows  from  this  ?  It  follows,  my  friends,  that  the  man  who 
thus  sees  his  God  in  the  poor,  who  looks  upon  them  with  the 
eyes  of  faith,  who  recognizes  in  them  something  sacramental, 
the  touch  of  which  will  sanctify  him  who  approaches  them — 
that  that  man  will  approach  them  with  tenderness  and  with 
reverence — that  he  will  consult  their  feelings — that  he  will  seek 
to  console  the  heart  while  he  revives  the  body,  and  while  he 
puts  meat  and  drink  before  the  sick  man  or  the  poor  man,  he 
will  not  put  away  from  his  heart  the  source  of  his  comfort.  He 
will  not  separate  him  from  the  wife  of  his  bosom  or  the  children 
of  his  love.  He  will  not  relieve  him  with  a  voice  unmindful  of 
compassion  ;  bending  down,  as  it  were,  to  relieve  the  poor.  No, 
but  he  will  relieve  him  in  the  truth  of  his  soul,  as  recognizing  in 
that  man  one  who  is  identified,  in  the  divinity  of  love  and  of 
tenderness,  with  his  Lord  and  Master.  This  explains  to  you 
the  fact,  that  when  the  high-minded,  the  highly-educated,  the 
noblest  and  best  of  the  children  of  the  Catholic  Church — the 
young  lady  with  all  the  prospects  of  the  world  glittering  before 
her — with  fortune  and  its  enjoyments  around  her — with  the 
beauty  of  nature  and  of  grace  beaming  from  her  pure  counte- 
nance— when  the  young  lady,  enamored  of  heaven,  and  of  the 
things  of  heaven,  and  disgusted  with  the  world,  comes  to  the 
foot  of  the  sanctuary,  and  there  kneeling,  seeks  a  place  in  the 
Church's  holy  places,  and  an  humble  share  in  her  ministrations, 
the  Church  takes  her — one  of  these — her  holiest,  her  best,  her 
purest ;  and  she  considers  that  she  has  conferred  the  highest 
honor  upon  the  best  of  her  children,  when  she  clothes  her  with 
the  sacred  habit  of  religion,  and   tells  her  to  go  and  take  her 


1 82  The  Attributes  of  Catholic  Chanty. 

place  in  the  hospital,  or  in  the  poor-house,  or  in  the  infirmary, 
or  in  the  orphanage,  and  sit  down  and  minister  to  the  poor ;  not 
as  relieving  them,  but  as  humbly  serving  them  ;  not  as  compas 
sionating  them,  but  as  approaching  them  with  an  almost  infinite 
reverence,  as  if  she  were  approaching  Christ  Himself.  Thus  do 
we  see  how  the  Catholic  virtue  of  charity  springs  from  heaven. 
All  tenderness  of  heart,  all  benevolence,  all  compassion,  may  be 
there ;  as  no  doubt  it  is,  in  these  hearts,  in  these  consecrated 
ones,  who,  in  order  that  they  might  love  Christ  and  His  poor 
all  the  more  tenderly,  all  the  more  strongly,  vowed  to  the  Sav- 
iour, at  His  altar,  that  no  love  should  enter  into  their  bosoms, 
no  emotions  of  affection  should  ever  thrill  their  hearts,  except 
love  for  Him;  for  Him,  wherever  they  found  Him:  and  they 
have  found  Him  in  His  poor  and  in  His  sick.  All  the  tenderest 
emotions  of  human  benevolence,  of  human  compassion,  of  human 
gentleness,  may  be  there  ;  all  that  makes  the  good  Protestant 
lady — the  good  infidel  lady,  if  you  will — so  compassionate  to  the 
poor ;  yet,  whilst  the  worldling,  and  those  without  the  Church 
bend  down  to  an  act-  of  condescension  in  their  charity,  these 
spouses  of  the  Son  of  God  look  up  to  the  poor,  and  in  theii 
obedience  seek  to  serve  them  ;  for  their  compassion,  their  benev- 
olence, their  divinely  tender  hearts  are  influenced  by  the  divine 
faith  which  recognizes  the  Son  of  God  in  the  persons  of  the 
poor  and  the  needy,  the  stricken  and  the  afflicted. 

This  is  the  Catholic  idea  of  charity  in  its  associations.  What 
follows  from  this?  It  follows,  that  when  I,  or  the  like  of  me, 
who,  equally  with  these  holy  women,  have  given  our  lives,  and 
our  souls,  and  our  bodies  to  the  service  of  the  Son  of  God,  and 
of  His  Church,  when  we  come  before  our  Catholic  brethren  to 
speak  to  them  on  this  great  question  of  Catholic  charity,  we  do 
not  come  as  preaching,  praying,  beseeching,  begging.  Oh,  no  ! 
But  we  come  with  a  strong  voice  of  authority,  as  commanding 
you,  "  If  you  would  see  the  Father's  brightness,  remember  the 
poor,  and,  at  your  peril,  surround  them  with  all  the  ministra- 
tions of  charity  and  of  mercy." 

And  how  does  hope  enter  into  these  considerations  ?  Ah,  my 
friends,  what  do  you  hope  for  at  all  ?  What  are  your  hopes,  J 
ask  the  Christian  man,  the  benevolent  brother  ?  I  don't  care 
what  religion  you  are  of:  Brother,  tell  me  your  hope ;  because, 
hope  from  its  very  nature  goes  out  into    the  future ;  hope  is  a 


The  Attributes  of  Catholic  Charity.  183 

realizing,  by  anticipation,  of  that  which  will  one  day  come  and 
be  in  our  possession.  What  are  your  hopes?  Every  man  has 
his  hopes.  No  man  lives  without  them.  Every  man  hopes  to 
attain  to  some  position  in  this  world,  or  to  gain  a  certain  happi- 
ness. One  man  hopes  to  make  money  and  become  a  rich  man. 
Another  man  aspires  to  certain  dignities,  hopes  for  them,  and 
labors  assiduously  until  he  attains  them.  Another  man  centres 
his  hopes  in  certain  passions,  and  immerses  himself  in  the  an- 
ticipations of  sensual  delights.  But  I  don't  care  what  your 
hopes  are ;  this  I  ask  you :  Are  your  hopes  circumscribed  by 
this  world,  or  do  they  go  beyond  the  tomb  ?  Is  all  hope  to 
cease  when  the  sad  hour  comes  that  will  find  each  and  every 
one  of  you  stretched  helpless  on  his  bed  of  death,  and  the  aw- 
ful angel,  bearing  the  summons  of  God,  cries  out,  "  Come  forth, 
O  soul,  and  come  with  me  to  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ!"  Is 
all  hope  to  perish  then  ?  No  !  no  !  but  the  Christian's  hope  then 
only  begins  to  be  realized.  No  ;  this  life  is  as  nothing  compared 
with  that  endless  eternity  that  awaits  us  beyond  the  grave ; 
and  there  all  our  hopes  are ;  and  the  hope  of  the  Christian 
man  is  that  when  that  hour  comes  that  shall  find  his  soul 
trembling  before  its  impending  doom,  awaiting  the  sentence — 
that  sentence  will  not  be,  '.'  Depart  from  me,  accursed,"  but 
that  it  will  be,  "  Come,  my  friend,  my  blessed  one,  come  and 
enjoy  the  happiness  and  the  joy  which  was  prepared  for  thee !' 
— this  is  our  hope.  Accursed  is  the  man  who  has  it  not.  Miser- 
able is  the  wretch  that  has  it  not !  What  would  this  life  be — 
even  if  it  were  a  life  of  ten  thousand  years,  replete  with  every 
pleasure — every  enjoyment — unmixed  by  the  slightest  evil  of 
sickness  or  of  sorrow,  if  we  knew  that  at  the  end  of  those  ten 
thousand  years,  the  eternity  beyond,  that  should  never  know  an 
end,  was  to  be  for  us  an  eternity  of  sorrow  and  of  despair ! 
We  should  be,  of  all  men,  the  most  miserable;  "  for,"  says  the 
Apostle,  "  if  in  this  life  only  we  have  hope  in  Christ,  we  are  of 
all  men  the  most  miserable."  "  But,  Christ  is  risen  from  the 
dead ;  our  hope ;"  and  we  look  forward  to  the  day  when  "  we 
shall  be  taken  up  in  the  clouds  to  meet  Christ  in  the  air,  and  so 
shall  we  be  always  with  the  Lord  ;"  translated  from  glory  unto 
glory,  until  we  behold  His  face,  unshrouded  and  unveiled,  and 
be  happy  for  ever  in  the  contemplation  of  God.  This  is  our 
nope;  yours  and  mine.     But,  remember,  that  although  the  Al- 


1 84  The  Attributes  of  Catholic  Charity. 

mighty  God  has  promised  this,  and  our  hope  is  built  upon  the 
fidelity  with  which  He  keeps  His  word,  still  no  man  can  expect 
the  reward,  nor  fan  build  up  his  hope  on  a  solid  foundation, 
unless  he  enters  into  the  designs  of  God,  and  complies  with 
the  conditions  that  God  has  attached  to  His  promises  of 
glory.  What  are  these  conditions?  Think  how  largely  the 
poor  and  the  afflicted  enter  into  them !  "  Come,"  the  Re- 
deemer and  Judge  will  say,  "  Come  unto  me,  ye  blessed  of 
my  Father!  This  is  not  the  first  time  that  you  have  seen 
me.  I  was  hungry,  and  you  gave  me  to  eat !  I  was  thirsty, 
and  you  gave  me  to  drink !  I  was  naked,  and  you  clothed  me  ! 
I  was  sick,  and  you  visited  me,  and  consoled  me !"  And  then 
the  just  shall  exclaim  :  "  Lord  !  when  did  we  ever  behold  Thee, 
oh,  powerful  and  terrible  Son  of  God !  when  did  we  behold 
Thee  naked,  or  hungry,  or  sick  ?"  And  He,  answering,  will  call 
the  poor — the  poor  to  whom  we  minister  to-day ;  the  poor 
whom  we  console,  and  whose  drooping  heads  we  lift  up  to-day 
— He  will  call  them,  and  say :  "  Do  you  know  these  ?"  And 
they  will  cry  out :  "  Oh,  yes  ;  these  are  the  poor  whom  we  saw 
hungry,  and  we  fed  them ;  whom  we  saw  naked,  and  we  clothed 
them ;  whom  we  saw  sick,  and  we  consoled  and  visited  them. 
These  are  the  poor  that  we  were  so  familiar  with,  and  that  we 
employed  Thy  spouses,  O  Christ,  to  minister  unto,  and  to 
console!"  Then  He  will  answer,  and  say:  "I  swear  to  you 
that,  as  I  am  God,  as  often  as  you  have  done  it  to  the  least  of 
these,  ye  have  done  it  unto  Me !"  But  if,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  come  before  him,  glorying  in  the  strength  of  our  faith; 
magniloquent  in  our  professions  of  Christianity ;  splendid  in 
our  assumption  of  the  highest  principles  ;  correct  in  many  of  the 
leading  traits  of  the  Christian  character — but  with  hands  empty 
of  the  works  of  mercy ;  if  we  are  only  obliged  to  say  with 
truth,  "  Lord,  I  claim  heaven  ;  but  I  never  clothed  the  naked  ; 
I  never  fed  the  hungry  ;  I  never  lifted  up  the  drooping  head  of 
the  sick  and  the  afflicted."  Christ,  our  Lord,  will  answer  and 
say  :  "  Depart  from  me  !  I  know  you  not ;  I  do  not  recognize 
you.  I  was  hungry,  and  ye  would  not  feed  me  in  my  hunger ; 
1  was  naked,  and  you  would  not  clothe  me  in  my  nakedness  ; 
I  was  thirsty  and  sick,  and  you  would  not  relieve  me,  nor  con- 
sole me  in  my  sickness."  And  the  reprobate  will  answer: 
*  Lord,  we  never  saw  Thee  hungry,  or  naked,  or  sick."     And 


The  Attributes  of  CatJwlic  Charity.  185 

then,  once  more,  will  He  call  the  poor,  and  say:  "  Behold  these ; 
to  these  did  you  refuse  your  mercy,  your  pity,  your  charity ;  and 
I  swear  to  you  that,  as  I  am  God,  in  the  day  that  you  refused 
to  comfort,  and  to  succor,  and  to  console  them,  you  refused  to 
do  it  unto  me.  Therefoie,  there  is  no  heaven  for  you."  The 
golden  key  that  opens  the  gate  of  heaven  is  the  key  of  mercy 
therefore  He  will  say :  "  As  often  as  you  are  merciful  to  the 
poor,  you  are  merciful  to  Me.  I  have  said :  Blessed  are  the 
merciful,  for  they  shall  find  mercy." 

Who,  therefore,  amongst  you,  believing  in  these  things,  does 
not  at  once  see  that  there  is  no  true  faith  that  does  not  recog- 
nize Christ  in  His  poor,  and  so  succor  them  with  veneration  ; 
who  does  not  see  that  his  hope  is  built  upon  the  relations  which 
are  established  between  him  and  the  poor  of  God  ?  Thus,  out 
of  this  faith  and  out  of  this  hope  springs  the  charity  with  which 
we  must  relieve  them.  Now,  mark  how  beautifully  all  this  is 
organized  in  the  Catholic  Church.  There  is  a  curious  expres- 
sion in  the  Scriptures — it  is  found  in  the  Canticles  of  Solomon — 
where  the  spouse  of  the  King — that  is  to  say,  the  Church  of 
God — amongst  other  things,  says  :  "  My  Lord  and  my  King  has 
organized  charity  in  me."  "  Ordinavit  in  mc  caritatcm."  Thus 
it  is  not  the  mere  temporary  flash  of  enthusiasm — it  is  not  the 
mere  passing  feeling  of  benevolence,  touched  by  the  sight  of 
their  misery,  that  influences  the  Catholic  Church ;  but  it  i§ 
these  promises  and  these  principles  of  the  Christian  faith,  recog- 
nizing who  and  what  the  poor  are,  and  our  Christian  hope, 
building  up  all  the  conditions  of  its  future  glory  upon  this  found- 
ation. Therefore  it  is,  that  in  the  Catholic  Church,  alone,  is 
found  the  grand,  organized  charity  of  the  world.  Nowhere, 
without  her  pale,  do  you  find  charity  organized.  You  may  find 
a  fair  and  beautiful  ebullition  of  pity,  here  and  there,  as  when  a 
rich  man  dies  and  leaves,  perhaps,  half  a  million  of  dollars  to 
found  an  hospital.  But  it  is  an  exceptional  thing,  my  dear 
friends  ;  as  when  some  grand  lady,  magnificent  of  heart  and 
mind — like,  for  instance,  Florence  Nightingale — devotes  herself 
to  the  poor ;  goes  into  the  hospitals  and  the  infirmaries  for  the 
wounded.  It  is  an  exceptional  case,  I  answer.  If  you  travel 
out  of  the  bounds  of  that  fair  and  beautiful  compassion  that 
runs  in  so  many  hearts,  and  if  you  go  one  step  farther  into  the 
cold  atmosphere  of  political  "or  State  charity,  there  is  not  one 


1 86  The  Attributes  of  Catholic  Charity. 

vestige  of  charity  there  ;  it  becomes  political  economy.  The 
State  believes  it  is  more  economical  to  pick  up  the  poor  from 
the  streets  and  lanes,  to  take  them  from  their  sick-beds,  transfer- 
ring them  into  poor-houses  and  hospitals,  and,  whilst  there,  over- 
whelming them  with  the  miserable  pity  that  patronizes,  making 
its  gifts  a  curse  and  not  a  blessing,  by  breaking  the  heart  whilst 
it  relieves  the  body.  Such  is  "  State  charity."  I  remember 
once,  in  the  city  of  Dublin,  I  got  a  sick-call.  It  was  to  attend 
a  poor  woman.  I  went,  and  found,  in  a  back  lane  in  a  city,  a 
room  on  a  garret.  I  climbed  up  to  the  place.  There  I  found, 
without  exaggeration,  four  bare  walls,  and  a  woman  seventy-five 
years  of  age,  covered  with  a  few  squalid  rags,  and  lying  on  the 
bare  floor  ;  not  as  much  as  a  little  straw  had  she  under  her  head. 
I  asked  for  a  cup  to  give  her  a  drink  of  water.  There  was  no 
such  thing  to  be  had  ;  and  there  was  no  one  there  to  give  it.  I 
had  to  go  out  and  beg  amongst  the  neighbors,  until  I  got  a 
cupful  of  cold  water.  I  put  it  to  her  dying  lips.  I  had  to  kneel 
down  upon  that  bare  floor  to  hear  that  dying  woman's  con- 
fession. The  hand  of  death  was  upon  her.  What  was  her  story? 
She  was  the  mother  of  six  children  ;  a  lady,  educated  in  a  lady- 
like manner  ;  a  lady,  beginning  her  career  of  life  in  affluence  and 
in  comfort.  The  six  children  grew  up.  Some  married  ;  some 
emigrated  ;  some  died.  But  the  weak  and  aged  mother  was 
alone,  and  apparently  forgotten.  And  now,  she  was  literally 
dying,  not  only  of  the  fever  that  was  upon  her,  but — of  starva- 
tion !  As  I  knelt  there  on  the  floor,  and  as  I  lifted  her  aged, 
gray-haired  head  upon  my  hands,  I  said  to  her,  "  Let  me,  for 
God's  sake,  have  you  taken  to  the  workhouse  hospital ;  at  least 
you  will  have  a  bed  to  lie  upon  !"  She  turned  and  looked  at 
me.  Two  great  tears  came  from  her  dying  eyes,  as  she  said : 
"  Oh,  that  I  should  have  lived  to  hear  a  Catholic  priest  talk  to 
me  about  a  poor-house!"  I  felt  that  I  had  almost  broken  this 
aged  heart.  On  my  knees  I  begged  her  pardon.  "  No,"  she 
said,  "  let  me  die  in  peace  !"  And  there,  whilst  I  knelt  at  her 
side,  her  afflicted  and  chastened  spirit  passed  away  to  God ; 
but  the  taint  of  the  "  charity  of  the  State"  was  not  upon  her. 

Now,  passing  from  this  cold  and  wicked  atmosphere  of  politi- 
cal economy,  through  the  purer  and  more  genial  air  of  benevo- 
lence, charity,  and  tenderness — of  which  there  is  so  much,  even 
outside  the  Church — we  enter  into  the  halls  of  the  Catholic 


The  Attributes  of  Catholic  Charity.  187 

Church.  There,  amongst  the  varied  beauties — amongst  the 
'  consecrated  forms  of  loveliness"  with  which  Christ  adorned 
His  Church — we  find  the  golden  garment  of  an  organized  char- 
ity. We  find  the  highest,  the  best,  and  the  purest  devoted  to 
its  service  and  to  its  cause.  We  find  every  form  of  misery  which 
the  hand  of  God,  or  the  malice  of  man,  or  their  own  errors,  can 
attach  to  the  poor,  provided  for.  The  child  of  misfortune  wan- 
ders through  the  streets  of  the  city,  wasting  her  young  heart, 
polluting  the  very  air  that  she  breathes — a  living  sin!  The  sight 
of  her  is  sin — the  thought  of  her  is  death — the  touch  of  her  hand 
is  pollution  unutterable !  No  man  can  look  upon  her  face  and 
live !  In  a  moment  of  divine  compassion,  the  benighted  and 
the  wicked  heart  is  moved  to  turn  to  God.  With  the  tears  of 
the  penitent  upon  her  young  and  sinful  face,  she  turns  to  the 
portals  of  the  Church  ;  and  there,  at  the  very  threshold  of  the 
sanctuary  of  God,  she  finds  the  very  ideal  of  purity — the  high- 
est, the  grandest,  the  noblest  of  the  Church's  children.  The 
woman  who  has  never  known  the  pollution  of  a  wicked  thought 
— the  woman  whose  virgin  bosom  has  never  been  crossed  by  the 
shadow  of  a  thought  of  sin — the  woman  breathing  purity,  inno- 
cence, grace — receives  the  woman  whose  breath  is  the  pestilence 
of  hell !  Extremes  meet.  Mary,  the  Virgin,  takes  the  hand  of 
Mary,  the  Magdalene  ;  and,  in  the  organized  charity  of  the 
Church  of  God,  the  penitent  enters  in  to  be  saved  and  sancti- 
fied. 

The  poor  man,  worn  down  and  broken  by  poverty,  exposed  in 
his  daily  labor  to  the  winds  and  the  rains  of  heaven,  with  failing 
health  and  drooping  heart,  lies  down  to  die.  There,  by  his  bed- 
side, stands  the  wife,  and  round  her,  her  group  of  little  children. 
They  depend  upon  his  daily  labor  for  their  daily  bread.  Now, 
that  hand  that  labored  foi  ihem  so  long  and  so  lovingly,  is  pal- 
sied and  stricken  by  his  side.  Now,  his  dying  eyes  are  grieved 
with  the  sight  of  their  misery.  His  ears  are  filled  with  the  cry 
of  the  little  ones  for  bread.  The  despair  of  their  doom  come« 
to  embitter  his  dying  moments.  He  looks  from  that  bed  of 
death  out  upon  the  gloomy  world.  He  sees  the  wife  of  his 
bosom  consigned  to  a  pauper's  cell,  to  await  a  pauper's  grave  ; 
and,  for  these  innocent  faces  that  surround  him,  he  sees  no 
future  but  a  future  of  ignorance  and  of  crime  ;  of  punishment 
without  hope  of  amendment ;  and  of  the  loss  of  their  souls  in 


1 88  The  Attrihites  of  Catholic  Charity. 

the  great  mass  of  the  world's  crimes  and  misdeeds.  But,  whilst 
he  is  thus  mournfully  brooding,  with  sad  and  despairing  thoughts, 
what  figure  is  this  that  crosses  the  threshold  and  casts  its  shadow 
on  the  floor  of  the  house?  Who  is  this,  entering  noiselessly, 
modestly,  silently,  shrouded  and  veiled,  as  a  being  of  heaven, 
not  of  earth?  He  lifts  his  eyes  and  he  beholds  the  mild  and 
placid  face  of  the  Sister  of  Mercy,  beaming  purity,  mixed  with 
.divine  love,  upon  him.  Now  the  sunshine  of  God  is  let  in  upon 
the  darkness  of  his  despairing  soul.  Now  he  hears  a  voice 
almost  as  gentle,  almost  as  tender,  almost  as  powerful  as  the 
voice  of  Him  who  whispered  in  the  ear  of  the  Widow  of  Nairn, 
"  Oh,  woman,  weep  no  more  \"  And  she  tells  him  to  fear  not : 
that  her  woman's  hand  will  insure  protection  for  his  children — 
and  education,  grace,  virtue,  heaven,  and  God.  I  once  remem- 
ber I  was  called  to  attend  a  man,  such  as  I  have  endeavored  to 
describe  to  you.  There  were  seven  little  children  in  the  house. 
There  was  a  woman,  the  mother  of  those  children,  the  wife  of 
him  who  was  dying  there.  Two  years  before,  this  man  had 
fallen  from  a  scaffold,  and  was  so  shattered  that  he  was  para- 
lyzed ;  and  for  two  years  he  had  lain  upon  that  bed,  starving  as 
well  as  dying.  When  I  was  called  to  visit  this  man,  I  spoke  to 
him  of  the  mercy  of  God.  He  looked  upon  me  with  a  sullen  and 
despairing  eye.  "  This  is  the  first  time,"  he  said,  "  that  you 
have  come  to  my  bedside."  Said  I :  "  My  friend,  this  is  the 
first  time  that  I  knew  you  were  sick.  Had  I  known  it,  I  would 
have  come  to  you  before."  "  No  one," — this  was  his  answer — 
"  no  one  cares  for  me.  And  you  come  now  to  speak  to  me  of 
the  mercy  of  God  !  I  have  been  on  this  bed  for  more  than  two 
years.  I  have  seen  that  woman  and  her  children  starving  for 
the  last  two  years.  And  do  you  tell  me  that  there  is  a  God  of 
mercy  above  me!"  I  saw  at  once  it  was  a  case  with  which  I 
could  not  deal.  I  left  the  house  on  the  instant,  and  went  straight 
to  a  convent  of  the  Sisters  of  Mercy  that  was  near.  There  I 
asked  the  Mother  Superior,  for  God's  sake,  to  send  one  or  two 
of  the  nuns  to  the  house.  They  went.  Next  day  I  visited 
him.  Oh,  what  a  change  I  found  !  No  longer  the  dull  eye  of 
despair.  He  looked  up  boldly  and  cheerfully  from  his  bed  of 
sorrow,  no  longer  murmuring  against  the  mercy  of  God,  but 
•nth  the  deep  thankfulness  of  a  grateful  heart.  "  Oh,"  said  he, 
I  am  so  happy,  Father,  that  I  sent  for  you, — not  so  much  for 


The  Attributes  of  Catholic  Charity.  189 

anything  y  ou  can  do  for  me ;  but  you  sent  me  two  angels  of 
God  from  heaven!  They  came  into  my  house;  and,  for  the 
first  time  in  two  long  years,  I  learned  to  hope ;  to  be  sorry  for 
my  want  of  resignation ;  and  to  return,  with  love,  to  that  God 
whom  I  dared  to  doubt  !  "  Then  he  made  his  confession,  and 
I  prepared  him  for  death.  Patient  he  was.  and  resigned ;  and, 
in  his  last  moments,  when  his  voice  was  faltering — when  his 
voice  became  that  of  the  departing  spirit — his  last  words  were  : 
"You  sent  to  me  the  angels  of  God,  and  they  told  me  that 
when  I  should  be  in  my  grave  they  would  be  mothers  to  my 
children !  "  Oh,  fair  and  beautiful  Church,  that  knows  so  well 
how  to  console  the  afflicted,  to  bind  up  the  wounds  of  the 
breaking  heart,  to  lift  up  the  weary  and  the  drooping  head. 
Every  form  of  human  misery,  every  form  of  wretchedness — 
whether  sent  from  God  as  a  warning  or  a  trial,  or  coming  from 
men's  own  excesses  and  folly,  and  as  a  punishment  for  their 
sins — every  form  of  human  misery  and  affliction,  as  soon  as  it  is 
seen,  is  softened  and  relieved  by  the  gentlest,  the  tenderest,  the 
sweetest  agency — the  touch  of  God  through  His  consecrated 
ones.  And  it  seems  to  the  sufferer  as  if  the  word  of  the  promise 
to  come  were  fulfilled  in  time — the  word  which  says  :  "  The 
Lord  Himself  will  wipe  away  every  tear  from  the  eyes  of  His 
elect,  and  there  shall  be  no  more  weeping,  nor  sorrow,  nor  any 
pain,  for  the  former  things  have  passed  away." 

And  thus,  my  friends,  we  see  how  beautifully  charity  is  organ- 
ized in  the  Catholic  Church.  Not  one  penny  of  your  charity  is 
wasted.  Every  farthing  that  you  contribute  will  be  expended 
wisely,  judiciously,  and  extended  to  its  farthest  length  of  useful- 
ness in  the  service  of  God's  poor  and  stricken  ones.  And,  lest  the 
poor  might  be  humbled  whilst  they  are  relieved,  lest  they  might 
be  hurt  in  their  feelings  whilst  consoled  with  the  temporal  doles 
that  are  lavished  upon  them,  the  Church  of  God,  with  a  wisdom 
*more  than  human,  appoints  as  her  ministers  of  the  poor,  those 
who,  for  the  love  of  Christ,  have  become  poor  like  them.  Be- 
hold these  nuns !  They  are  the  daughters  of  St.  Francis. 
Seven  hundred  years  ago  now,  almost,  there  arose  in  the  city 
of  Assisi,  in  Umbria,  in  Italy,  a  man  so  filled  with  the  sweet 
love  of  Christ — so  impregnated  with  the  spirit  of  the  Son  of 
God,  made  man — that,  in  the  rapture  of  his  prayer,  the  "  stig- 
vtata"— the  marks  of  the  nails  upon  the  hands  and  feet,  of  the 


190  The  Attributes  of  Catholic  Charity. 

thorns  upon  the  brow,  of  the  wounds  upon  the  side  of  the  Re- 
deemer — were  given  to  Francis  of  Assisi.  Men  beheld  him  and 
started  from  the  sight,  giving  glory  to  God  that  they  had  caught 
a  gleam  of  Jesus  Christ  upon  the  earth.  He  was  the  only  saint 
of  whom  we  read,  that,  without  opening  his  lips,  but  simply 
coming  and  walking  through  the  ways  of  the  city,  moved  all 
eyes  that  beheld  him  to  tears  of  tenderness  and  divine  love : 
and  he  "  preached  Christ  and  Him  crucified,"  by  merely  showing 
Himself  to  men.  These  are  the  daughters  of  this  saint,  inherit- 
ing his  spirit  ;  and  he,  in  the  Church,  is  the  very  ideal  saint  of 
divine  and  religious  poverty.  He  would  not  have  a  shoe  to  his 
foot.  He  would  not  have  a  second  coat.  He  would  not  have 
in  his  bag  provision  even  for  to-morrow ;  but  waited,  like  the 
prophet  of  old,  that  it  should  come  to  him  from  God,  at  the 
hands  of  his  benefactors — the  very  ideal  saint  of  poverty  ;  and, 
therefore,  of  all  others,  the  most  devoted  in  himself,  and  in 
his  children,  to  God's  poor.  When  there  was  a  question  of  de- 
stroying the  religious  orders  in  Italy,  and  of  passing  a  law  that 
would  not  permit  me,  a  Dominican,  or  these  nuns,  Franciscans, 
to  dwell  in  the  land — just  as  if  we  were  doing  any  harm  to  any- 
body ;  as  if  we  were  not  doing  our  best  to  save  and  serve  all 
the  people — Caesare  Cantu,  the  celebrated  historian,  stood  up 
in  the  assembly  and  said  :  "  Men !  before  you  make  this  law, 
abolishing  all  the  religious  men  and  women  in  the  land,  reflect 
for  an  instant.'  If  any  man  amongst  you,  by  some  reverse  of 
fortune,  become  poor;  if  any  man  amongst  you,  in  this  en- 
lightened age,  is  obliged  to  beg  his  daily  bread ;  wouldn't  you 
feel  ashamed  ?  wouldn't  you  feel  degraded  to  have  to  go  to 
your  fellow-man  to  ask  him  for  alms?  For  me,  if  God  should 
strike  me  with  poverty,  I  would  feel  it  a  degradation.  But  I 
would  not  feel  it  a  degradation  to  go  to  a  Dominican  or  a  Fran- 
ciscan, and  ask  him,  a  brother  pauper,  to  break  his  bread  with 
me." 

It  is  fitting  that  the  voice  which  speaks  to  you  this  evening — 
although  it  comes  from  one  wearing  the  habit  of  St.  Dominic — 
should  speak  to  you  in  the  language  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi, 
who  was  the  bosom  friend  of  the  great  Dominic  of  Guzman. 
United  in  life  and  in  love  as  the  Fathers  we:e,  their  children  are 
united  in  that  spiritual  love  which  is  the  aheritance  of  God's 
consecrated  ones  on  earth.     And,  'iberefor;    it  is  a  privilege  and 


The  Attributes  of  Catholic  Charity.  191 

a  glory  to  me  to  speak  to  you  this  evening  on  behalf  of  my 
Franciscan  sisters.  Yet,  not  in  their  behalf  do  I  speak,  but  in 
behalf  of  the  poor ;  nor  in  behalf  of  the  poor,  but  in  behalf  of 
Christ,  who  identifies  Himself  with  the  poor ;  nor  in  behalf 
of  Him,  but  in  your  own  behalf;  seeing  that  all  your  nopes 
of  the  glory  of  heaven  are  bound  up  with  the  poor  of 
whom  I  speak.  It  is  your  glory,  and  the  glory  of  this  special 
charity,  that  it  was  the  first  hospital  founded  in  this  State  ;  that 
at  a  time  when  men,  concentrating  their  energies  to  amass 
wealth,  immersed  in  their  business,  trying  to  heap  up  accumu- 
lations, and  gather  riches  and  large  possessions,  never  thought 
of  their  poor  ;  or,  if  the  poor  obtruded  themselves,  brushed 
them  out  of  their  path,  and  told  them  to  be  gone;  then  there 
came  the  Church  of  Christ  into  the  midst  of  you.  She  sought 
not  money,  nor  land,  nor  possessions.  She  brought  these  poor 
nuns,  vowed  to  poverty,  despising  all  the  things  of  the  world, 
and  leaving  them  behind  them  ;  she  built  up  her  hospital  for 
the  sick ;  she  brought  her  children  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  to 
minister  to  them,  in  mercy,  in  faith,  and  hope ;  and  in  the  gen- 
tleness of  Divine  charity,  to-night  the  Franciscan  nuns  say 
to  you,  "  Blessed  is  the  man  that  understandeth  concerning 
the  needy  and  the  poor  !" 

I  hope  I  may  have  thrown  some  light  into  the  mind  of  even 
one  amongst  you,  this  evening,  and  let  him  see  how  blessed  is 
the  man  who  knows  his  position  concerning  the  needy  and  the 
poor.  I  hope  that  those  to  whom  my  words  give  no  light,  may, 
at  least,  be  given  encouragement  to  persevere.  Persevere, 
Catholics  of  Hoboken  and  Jersey  City,  in  maintaining  these 
Sisters,  in  filling  their  hands  with  your  benefactions,  in  en- 
abling them  to  pursue  their  calm  but  glorious  career  of  charity 
and  of  mercy.  I  know  that  in  thus  encouraging  you,  I  am 
advancing  the  best  interests  of  your  souls ;  and  that  the  mite 
that  you  give  to-day,  which  might  be  given  for  pleasure,  or 
sinfulness — shall  return  to  you  one  day  in  the  form  of  a  crown 
—the  crown  of  glory  which  will  be  set  upon  your  heads,  for 
ever  and  for  ever,  before  the  Throne  of  God,  by  the  hands 
of  the  poor  of  Christ.  Again  I  say  to  you,  will  you  hear 
the  voice  from  the  Throne :  "  Whatever  you  do  to  the  poor, 
you  do  it  unto  Me!"  Oh,  may  God  send  down  His  angel 
of  mercy!  may  the  spirit  of  His  mercy  breathe  amongst  us! 


192  The  Attributes  of  Catholic  Charity. 

.may  the  chanty  which  guides  your  mercy — the  charity,  spring, 
ing  from  an  enlightened  and  pure  faith,  and  from  a  true  and 
substantial  hope — bring  your  reward  ;  that  so,  in  the  day  when 
Faith  shall  perish  with  time — when  Hope  shall  be  lost,  eithei 
in  joy  or  sorrow — either  in  the  fruition  of  heaven  or  in  the 
despair  of  hell — that  on  that  day  you  may  be  able  to  exclaim, 
when  you  first  catch  sight  of  the  unveiled  glory  of  the  Saviour, 
"  Oh,  Christ,  of  all  the  beauties  of  God,  it  is  true,  '  the  greatest 
is  Charity.'  " 


THE    HISTORY  OF    IRELAND,  AS 
TOLD  IN  HER  RUINS. 


[Delivered  in  the  Cooper  Institute,  New  York,  on  the  evening  of  April  5th,  1S72.] 

ADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN:  Before  I  approach  the 
subject  of  this  evening's  lecture,  I  have  to  apologize  to 
you,  in  all  earnestness,  for  appearing  before  you  this 
evening  in  my  habit.  The  reason  why  I  put  off  my  black 
cloth  coat  and  put  on  this  dress — the  Dominican  habit — is,  first 
of  all,  because  I  never  feel  at  home  in  a  black  coat.  When  God 
called  me,  the  only  son  of  an  Irish  father  and  an  Irish  mother, 
from  the  home  of  the  old  people,  and  told  me  that  it  was  His 
will  that  I  should  belong  to  Him  in  the  sanctuary,  the  father 
and  mother  gave  me  up  without  a  sigh,  because  they  were  Irish 
parents,  and  had  the  Irish  faith  and  love  for  the  Church  in  their 
hearts.  And  from  the  day  I  took  this  habit — from  that  day  to 
this — I  never  felt  at  home  in  any  other  dress ;  and  if  I  were  to 
come  before  you  this  evening  in  black  cloth,  like  a  layman,  and 
not  like  an  Irish  Dominican  friar,  I  might,  perhaps,  break  down 
in  my  lecture.  But  there  is  another  reason  why  I  appear  before 
you  in  this  white  habit ;  because  I  am  come  to  speak  to  you  of 
the  ruins  that  cover  the  face  of  the  old  land ;  I  am  come  to 
speak  to  you,  and  to  tell  you  of  the  glory  and  the  shame,  and 
the  joy  and  the  sorrow,  that  these  ruins  so  eloquently  tell  of; 
and  when  I  look  upon  them,  in  spirit  now,  my  mind  sweeps  over 
the  intervening  ocean,  and  I  stand  in  imagination  under  the 
ivied  and  moss-covered  arches  of  Athenry,  or  Sligo,  or  Clare-Gal- 
way,  or  Kilconnell.  The  view  that  rises  before  me  of  the  former 
inmates  of  these  holy  places,  is  a  vision  of  white-robed  Domini- 
cans and  of  brown  Franciscans  ;  and,  therefore,    in  coming  to 

13 


194  The  History  of  Ireland,  as 

speak  to  you  in  this  garment,  of  the  glorious  history  which  they 
tell  us,  I  feel  more  myself,  more  in  consonance  with  the  subject 
of  which  I  have  to  speak,  in  appearing  before  you  as  the  child 
and  the  representative — no  matter  how  unworthy — of  the  Irish 
friars — the  Irish  priests  and  patriots  who  sleep  in  Irish  graves 
to-night. 

And  now,  my  friends,  the  most  precious — the  grandest — in- 
heritance of  any  people,  is  that  people's  history.  All  that  forms 
the  national  character  of  a  people,  their  tone  of  thought,  their 
devotion,  their  love,  their  sympathies,  their  antipathies,  their 
language — all  this  is  found  in  their  history,  as  the  effect  is  found 
in  its  cause,  as  the  autumn  speaks  of  the  spring.'  And  the 
philosopher  who  wishes  to  analyze  a  people's  character  and  to 
account  for  it — to  account  for  the  national  desires,  hopes,  aspi- 
rations, for  the  strong  sympathies  or  antipathies  that  sway  a 
people — must  go  back  to  the  deep  recesses  of  their  history ;  and 
there,  in  ages  long  gone  by,  will  he  find  the  seeds  that  produced 
the  fruit  that  he  attempts  to  account  for.  And  he  will  find  that 
the  nation  of  to-day  is  but  the  child  and  the  offspring  of  the 
nation  of  by-gone  ages ;  for  it  is  written  truly,  that  "  the  child 
is  father  to  the  man."  When,  therefore,  we  come  to  consider 
the  desires  of  nations,  we  find  that  every  people  is  most  strongly 
desirous  to  preserve  its  history,  even  as  every  man  is  ai.xious  to 
preserve  the  record  of  his  life ;  for  history  is  the  record  of  a 
people's  life.  Hence  it  is  that,  in  the  libraries  of  the  more 
ancient  nations  we  find  the  earliest  histories  of  the  primeval 
races  of  mankind,  written  upon  the  durable  vellum,  the  imper- 
ishable asbestos,  or  sometimes  deeply  carved,  in  mystic  and 
forgotten  characters,  on  the  granite  stone  or  pictured  rock, 
showing  the  desire  of  the  people  to  preserve  their  history,  which 
is  to  preserve  the  memory  of  them,  just  as  the  old  man  dying 
said,  "  Lord,  keep  my  memory  green  !  " 

But,  besides  these  more  direct  and  documentary  evidences, 
the  history  of  every  nation  is  enshrined  in  the  national  tradi- 
tions, in  the  national  music  and  song;  much  more,  it  is  written 
in  the  public  buildings  that  cover  the  face  of  the  land.  These, 
silent  and  in  ruins,  tell  most  eloquently  their  tale.  To-day  "  the 
stone  may  be  crumbled,  the  wall  decayed  ;  "  the  clustering  ivy 
may,  perhaps,  uphold  the  tottering  ruin  to  which  it  clung  in 
the  days  of  its  strength  ;  b"*- 


Toid  in  Her  Ruins.  195 

"  The  sorrows,  the  joys  of  which  once  they  were  part, 
Still  round  them,  like  visions  of  yesterday,  throng." 

They  are  the  voices  of  the  past ;  they  are  the  voices  of  ages 
long  gone  by.  They  rear  their  venerable  and  beautiful  gray 
heads  high  over  the  land  they  adorn  ;  and  they  tell  us  the  tale 
of  the  glory  or  of  the  shame,  of  the  strength  or  of  the  weak- 
ness, of  the  prosperity  or  of  the  adversity  of  the  nation  to 
which  they  belong.  This  is  the  volume  which  we  are  about  to 
open ;  this  is  the  voice  which  we  are  about  to  call  forth  from 
their  gray  and  ivied  ruins  that  cover  the  green  bosom  of  Ireland  ; 
we  are  about  to  go  back  up  the  highways  of  history,  and,  as  it 
were,  to  breast  and  to  stem  the  stream  of  time,  to-day,  taking 
our  start  from  the  present  hour  in  Ireland.  What  have  we  here  ? 
It  is  a  stately  church — rivalling — perhaps  surpassing — in  its 
glory  the  grandeur  of  by-gone  times.  We  behold  the  solid 
buttresses,  the  massive  wall,  the  high  tower,  the  graceful  spire 
piercing  the  clouds,  and  upholding,  high  towards  heaven,  the 
symbol  of  man's  redemption,  the  glorious  sign  of  the  cross. 
We  see  in  the  stone  windows  the  massive  tracery,  so  solid,  so 
strong,  and  so  delicate.  What  does  this  tell  us?  Here  is  this 
church,  so  grand,  yet  so  fresh  and  new  and  clean  from  the 
mason's  hand.  What  does  it  tell  us  ?  It  tells  us  of  a  race  that 
has  never  decayed ;  it  tells  us  of  a  people  that  have  never  lost 
their  faith  nor  their  love ;  it  tells  us  of  a  nation  as  strong  in  its 
energy  for  every  highest  and  holiest  purpose,  to-day,  as  it  was 
in  the  ages  that  are  past  and  gone  forever. 

We  advance  just  half  a  century  up  the  highway  of  time  ; 
and  we  come  upon  that  which  has  been  familiar,  perhaps,  to 
many  amongst  you,  as  well  as  to  me — the  plain,  unpretending 
little  chapel,  in  some  by -lane  of  the  town  or  city — or  the  plain 
and  humble  little  chapel  in  some  by-way  in  the  country,  with 
its  thatched  roof,  its  low  ceiling,  its  earthen  floor,  its  wooden 
altar.  What  does  this  tell  us?  It  tells  us  of  a  people  strug- 
gling against  adversity ;  it  tells  us  of  a  people  making  their 
first  effort,  after  .three  hundred  years  of  blood,  to  build  up  a 
house,  however  humble,  for  their  God ;  it  tells  us  of  a  people 
who  had  not  yet  shaken  off  the  traditions  of  their  slavery,  upon 
whose  hands  the  chains  still  hang,  and  the  wounds  inflicted  by 
those  chains  are  still  rankling ;  it  tells  us  of  a  people  who 
scarcely  yet  know  how  to  engage    in  the    glorious    work   ui 


196  Tfu  History  0/  Ireland,  as 

Church  edification,  because  they  scarcely  yet  realized  the 
privilege  that  they  were  to  be  allowed  to  live  in  the  land  that 
bore  them.  Let  us  reverently  bow  down  our  heads  and  salute 
these  ancient  places — these  ancient,  humble  little  chapels,  in 
town  or  country,  where  we — we  men  of  middle  age — made  our 
first  confession  and  received  our  first  communion ;  let  us  salute 
these  places,  hallowed  in  our  memories  by  the  first,  and  there- 
fore the  strongest,  the  purest,  holiest  recollections  and  associa- 
tions of  our  lives  ;  and,  pilgrims  of'  history,  let  us  turn  into  the 
dreary,  solitary  road  that  lies  before  us.  It  is  a  road  of  three 
hundred  years  of  desolation  and  bloodshed  ;  it  is  a  road  that 
leads  through  martyrs'  and  patriots'  graves ;  it  is  a  road  that  is 
wet  with  the  tears  and  with  the  blood  of  a  persecuted  and 
down-trodden  people ;  it  is  a  road  that  is  pointed  out  to  us  by 
the  sign  of  the  cross,  the  emblem  of  the  nation's  faith,  and  by 
the  site  of  the  martyr's  grave,  the  emblem  of  the  nation's  un- 
dying fidelity  to  God. 

And  now  what  venerable  ruin  is  this  which  rises  before  our 
eyes,  moss-crowned,  embedded  in  clustering  ivy?  It  is  a 
church,  for  we  see  the  mullions  of  the  great  east  window  of  the 
sanctuary,  through  which  once  flowed,  through  angels  and  saints 
depicted  thereon,  the  mellow  sunshine  that  warmed  up  the  arch 
above,  and  made  mosaics  upon  the  church  and  altar.  It  is  a 
church  of  the  Mediaeval  Choral  Orders — for  I  see  the  lancet 
windows,  the  choir  where  the  religious  were  accustomed  to 
chant — yet  popular,  and  much  frequented  by  the  people — for  I 
see,  outside  the  choir,  an  ample  space ;  the  side-aisles  are  unin- 
cumbered, and  the  side-chapels  with  altars — the  mind  of  the 
architect  clearly  intending  an  ample  space  for  the  people  ;  yet 
it  is-  not  too  large  a  church  ;  for  it  is  generally  one  that  the 
preacher's  voice  can  easily  fill.  Outside  of  it  runs  the  square 
of  the  ruined  cloister,  humble  enough,  yet  most  beautiful  in  its 
architecture.  But  now,  church  and  cloister  alike  are  filled  with 
the  graves — the  homes — of  the  silent  dead.  Do  I  recall  to  the 
loving  memory  of  any  one  amongst  you,  scenes  that  have  been 
familiar  to  your  eyes  in  the  dear  and  the  green  old  land?  Are 
there  not  those  amongst  you,  who  have  looked,  with  eyes 
softened  by  love,  and  by  the  sadness  of  the  recollections  re- 
called to  the  mind,  under  the  chancel  and  the  choir,  under  the 
ample  space  of  nave  and  aisle  of  the  old  Abbey  of  Athenry,  of 


'I old  in  Her  Ruins.  197 

in  the  old  Abbey  of  Kilconnell,  or  such  as  these  ?  What  tale  do 
these  tell  ?  They  tell  of  a  nation  that,  although  engaged  in  a 
hand-to-hand  and  desperate  struggle  for  its  national  life,  yet  in 
the  midst  of  its  wars,  was  never  unmindful  of  its  God ;  they 
tell  of  Ireland  when  the  clutch  of  the  Saxon  was  upon  her — 
when  the  sword  was  unsheathed  that  was  never  to  know  its 
scabbard  from  that  day  until  this — and  that  never  will,  until  the 
diadem  of  perfect  freedom  rests  upon  the  virgin  brow  of  Ire- 
land. They  tell  of  the  glorious  days,  when  Ireland's  Church 
and  Ireland's  Nationality  joined  hands  ;  and  when  the  priest 
and  the  people  rose  up  to  enter  upon  a  glorious  combat 
for  freedom.  These  were  the  homes  of  the  Franciscan  and 
the  Dominican  friars — the  men  who,  during  three  hundred 
years  of  their  residence  in  Ireland,  recalled,  in  these  clois- 
ters, the  ancient  glories  of  Lismore,  and  of  Glendalough, 
and  of  Armagh ;  the  men  who,  from  the  time  they  first  raised 
these  cloisters,  never  left  the  land — never  abandoned  the  old 
soil,  but  lingered  around  their  ancient  homes  of  happiness,  of 
sanctity,  and  of  peace,  and  tried  to-keep  near  the  old  walls,  just 
as  Magdalen  lingered  round  the  empty  tomb,  on  Easter  morn- 
ing, at  Jerusalem.  They  tell  of  the  sanctuaries,  where  the 
hunted  head  of  the  Irish  patriot  found  refuge  and  a  place  of 
security;  they  tell  the  Irish  historian  of  the  national  councils, 
formed  for  state  purposes  within  them.  These  venerable  walls, 
if  they  could  speak,  would  tell  us  how  the  wavering  were  en- 
couraged and  strengthened,  and  the  brave  and  gallant  fired  with 
the  highest  and  noblest  purpose,  for  God  and  Erin;  how  the 
traitor  was  detected,  and  the  false-hearted  denounced ;  and  how 
the  nation's  life-blood  was  kept  warm,  and  her  wounds  were 
stanched,  by  the  wise  counsels  of  the  old  Franciscan  and  Domini- 
can friars.  All  this,  and  more,  would  these  walls  tell,  if  they 
could  speak  ;  for  they  have  witnessed  all  this.  They  witnessed 
it  until  the  day  came — the  day  of  war,  the  sword,  and  blood- 
that  drove  forth  their  saintly  inmates  from  their  loving  shelter, 
and  devoted  themselves  to  desolation  and  decay. 

Let  us  bow  down,  fellow-Irishmen,  with  reverence  and  with 
love,  as  we  pass  under  the  shadow  of  these  ancient  walls.  And 
now  stepping  a  few  years — scarcely  fifty  years — further  on,  on 
the  road  of  our  history,  passing,  as  we  go  along,  under  th« 
frowning,  dark  feudal   castles  of  the   Fitzgeralds,  of  the   D« 


198  The  History  of  Ireland,  as 

Laceys,  the  De  Courcys,  the  Fitzadelms,  and,  I  regret  to  say. 
the  De  Burgs — the  castles  that  tell  us  always  of  the  terror  of 
the  invaders  of  the  land,  hiding  themselves  in  their  strongholds, 
because  they  could  not  trust  to  the  love  of  the  people,  who 
hated  them ;  and  because  they  were  afraid  to  meet  the  people 
in  the  open  field — passing  under  the  frowning  shadows  of  these 
castles,  suddenly  we  stand  amazed — crushed,  as  it  were,  to  the 
earth — by  the  glories  that  rise  before  us,  in  the  ruins  of  Melli- 
font,  in  the  ruins  of  Dunbrodie,  in  the  awful  ruins  of  Holy  Cross 
and  of  Cashel,  that  we  see  yet  uplifting,  in  solemn  grandeur, 
their  stately  heads  in  ruined  beauty  over  the  land  which  they 
once  adorned.  There  do  we  see  the  vestiges  of  the  most  mag- 
nificent architecture,  some  of  the  grandest  buildings  that*  ever 
yet  were  raised  upon  this  earth  for  God  or  for  man.  There  do 
we  see  the  lofty  side-walls  pierced  with  huge  windows,  filled 
with  the  most  delicate  tracery ;  there,  when  we  enter  in  we 
throw  our  eyes  aloft  with  wonder,  and  see  the  groined,  massive 
arches  of  the  ceiling  upholding  the  mighty  tower;  there  do  we 
see  the  grandeur  of  the  ancient  Cistercians,  and  the  Canons 
Regular  of  St.  Augustine,  and  the  Benedictines.  What  tale  do 
they  tell  us  ?  Oh,  they  tell  us  a  glorious  tale  of  our  history  and 
o-f  our  people.  These  were  the  edifices  that  were  built  and 
founded  in  Ireland  during  the  brief  respite  that  the  nation  had, 
from  the  day  that  she  drove  the  last  Dane  out,  until  the  day 
that  the  first  accursed  Norman  came.  A  short  time — a  brief 
period  ;  too  brief,  alas  !  too  brief!  Ireland,  exhausted  after  her 
three  hundred  years  of  Danish  invasion,  turned  her  first  thoughts 
and  her  first  energies  to  build  up  the  ancient  places  that  were 
ruined — to  restore  and  to  clothe  the  sanctuaries  of  her  faith, 
with  a  splendor  such  as  the  nation  had  never  seen  before. 

We  will  pass  on.  And  now,  a  mountain-road  lies  before  us. 
The  land  is  filled  again,  for  three  centuries,  with  desolation  and 
with  bloodshed  and  with  sorrow.  The  hillsides,  on  either. hand 
of  our  path,  are  strewn  with  the  bodies  of  the  slain  ;  the  valleys 
are  filled  with  desolation  and  ruin  ;  the  air  resounds  to  the 
ferocious  battle-cry  of  the  Dane,  and  to  the  brave  battle-cry  of 
the  Celt,  intermingled  with  the  wailing  of  the  widowed  mother 
and  the  ravished  maid  ;  the  air  is  filled  with  the  crash  and  the 
shock  of  battle.  In  terrible  onset,  the  lithe,  active,  mail-clad, 
fair-haired,  blue-eyed  warriors  of  the  North  meet  the  dark,  stal- 


Told  in  Her  Ruins.  199 

wart  Celt,  and  they  close  in  mortal  combat.  Toiling  along, 
pilgrims  of  history  as  we  are,  we  come  to  the  summit  of  Tara's 
Hill,  and  there  we  look  in  vain  for  a  vestige  of  Ireland's  ruins. 
But  now,  after  these  three  hundred  years  of  our  backward  jour- 
ney over  the  highway  of  history,  we  breathe  the  upper  air.  The 
sunshine  of  the  eighth  century,  and  of  Ireland's  three  centuries 
of  Christianity,  is  upon  our  path.  We  breathe  the  purer  air ; 
we  are  amongst  the  mountains  of  God  ;  and  a  sight  the  most 
glorious  that  nation  ever  presented  opens  itself  before  our  eyes 
— the  sight  of  Ireland's  first  three  centuries  of  the  glorious  faith 
of  St .  Patrick.  Peace  is  upon  the  land.  Schools  rise  upon 
every  hill  and  in  every  valley.  Every  city  is  an  immense 
school.  The  air  again  is  filled  with  the  sound  of  many  voices  ; 
for  students  from  every  clime  under  the  sun — the  German, 
the  Pict,  the  Cimbri,  the  Frank,  the  Italian,  the  Saxon,  are  all 
mingling  together,  conversing  together  in  the  universal  language 
of  the  Church,  Rome's  old  Latin.  They  have  come,  and  they 
have  covered  the  land  ;  they  have  come  in  thousands  and  in  tens 
of  thousands,  to  hear,  from  the  lips  of  the  world-renowned  Irish 
saints,  all  the  lore  of  ancient  Greece  and  Rome,  and  to  study  in 
the  lives  of  these  saints  the  highest  degree  and  noblest  inter- 
pretation of  Christian  morality  and  Christian  perfection.  Wise 
rulers  governed  the  land  ;  her  heroes  were  moved  to  mighty 
acts ;  and  these  men,  who  came  from  every  clime  to  the  univer- 
sity of  the  world — to  the  great  masters  of  the  nations — go  back 
to  their  respective  countries  and  tell  the  glorious  tale  of  Ireland's 
strength  and  Ireland's  sanctity — of  the  purity  of  the  Irish 
maidens — of  the  learning  and  the  saintliness  of  the  Irish  priest- 
hood ;  of  the  wisdom  of  her  kings  and  rulers  ;  of  the  sanctity  of 
her  people ;  until  at  length,  from  out  the  recesses  of  history, 
there  comes,  floating  upon  the  breezes  of  time,  the  voice  of  an 
admiring  world,  that  proclaims  my  native  land,  in  that  happy 
epoch,  and  gives  to  her  the  name  of  the  island  of  heroes,  of 
saints,  and  of  sages. 

Look  up.  In  imagination  we  stand,  now,  upon  the  highest 
level  of  Ireland's  first  Christianity.  Above  us,  we  behold  the 
venerable  hill-top  of  Tara ;  and  beyond  that,  again,  far  away, 
and  high  up  on  the  mountain,  inaccessible  by  any  known  road 
of  history,  lies,  amidst  the  gloom — the  mysterious  cloud  that 
hangs  around  the  cradle  of  every  ancient  race,  looming  forth 


200  The  History  c/  Ireland,  as 

from    pre-historic   obscurity— we    behold    the   mighty   Round 
Towers  of  Ireland.     There  they  stand — 

"  The  Pillar  Towers  of  Ireland  !  how  wondrously  they  stand 
By  the  rushing  streams,  in  the  silent  glens,  and  the  valleys  of  the  land — 
In  mystic  file,  throughout  the  isle,  they  rear  their  heads  sublime — 
Those  gray,  old,  pillar  temples — those  conquerors  of  time." 

Now,  having  gone  up  to  the  cradle  and  fountain-head  of  our 
history,  as  told  by  its  monuments  and  its  ruins,  we  shall  pause 
a  little  before  we  begin  again  our  downward  course.  We  shall 
pause  for  a  few  moments  under  the  shadows  of  Ireland's  round 
towers.  There  they  stand,  most  perfect  in  their  architecture  ; 
stone  fitted  into  stone  with  the  most  artistic  nicety  and  regular- 
ity ;  every  stone  bound  to  its  bed  by  a  cement  as  hard  as  the 
stone  itself;  a  beautiful  calculation  of  the  weight  which  was  to 
be  put  upon  it,  and  the  foundation  which  was  to  sustain  it,  has 
arrived  at  this — that,  though  thousands  of  years  have  passed 
over  their  hoary  heads,  there  they  stand,  as  firm  to-day  as  on  the 
day  when  they  were  first  erected.  There  they  stand,  in  perfect 
form,  in  perfect  perpendicular  ;  and  the  student  of  art  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  can  find  matter  for  admiration  and  for  wonder 
in  the  evidence  of  Ireland's  civilization,  speaking  loudly  and 
eloquently  by  the  voice  of  her  most  ancient  round  towers. 
Who  built  them  ?  You  have  seen  them ;  they  are  all  over  the 
island.  The  traveller  sails  up  the  placid  bosom  of  the  lovely 
Blackwater,  and  whilst  he  admires  its  varied  beauties,  and  his 
very  heart  within  him  is  ravished  by  its  loveliness,  he  beholds, 
high  above  its  green  banks,  amidst  the  ruins  of  ancient  Lismore, 
a  venerable  round  tower  lifting  its  gray  head  into  the  air.  As 
he  goes  on,  passing,  as  in  a  dream  of  delight,  now  by  the  val- 
leys and  the  hills  of  lovely  Wicklow,  he  admires  the  weeping 
alders  that  hang  over  the  stream  in  sweet  Avoca  ;  he  admires 
the  bold  heights,  throwing  their  outlines  so  sharp  and  clear 
against  the  sky,  and  clothed  to  their  very  summits  with  the 
sweet-smelling  purple  heather;  he  admires  all  this,  until,  at 
length,  in  a  deep  valley,  in  the  very  heart  of  the  hills,  he  be- 
holds, reflecting  itself  in  the  deep  waters  of  still  Glendalough, 
the  venerable  "  round  tower  of  other  days."  Or  he  has  taken 
his  departure  from  the  Island  of  Saints,  and  when  his  ship's 
prow  is  turned  toward  the  setting  sun,  he  beholds  upon  the 
headlands  of  the  iron-bound  coast  of  Mayo  or  western  Galway, 


Told  in  Her  Ruins.  201 

the  round  tower  of  Ireland,  the  last  thing  the  eye  of  the  lover 
or  traveller  beholds.  Who  built  these  towers,  or  for  what  pur- 
pose were  they  built?  There  is  no  record  of  reply,  although  the 
question  has  been  repeated,  age  after  age,  for  thousands  of  years. 
Who  can  tell  ?  They  go  so  far  back  into  the  mists  of  history 
as  to  have  the  lead  of  all  the  known  events  in  the  history  of  our 
native  land.  Some  say  that  they  are  of  Christian  origin  ;  others, 
again,  say,  with  equal  probability,  and  perhaps  greater,  that 
these  venerable  monuments  are  far  more  ancient  than  Ireland's 
Catholicity ;  that  they  were  the  temples  of  a  by-gone  religion, 
and,  perhaps,  of  a  long-forgotten  race.  They  may  have  been 
the  temples  of  the  ancient  Fire  Worshippers  of  Ireland ; 
and  the  theory  has  been  mooted,  that  in  the  time  when 
our  remotest  forefathers  worshipped  the  rising  sun,  the 
priest  of  the  sun  was  accustomed  to  climb  to  the  summit 
of  the  round  tower,  to  turn  his  face  to  the  east,  and  watch 
with  anxiety  the  rising  of  the  morning  star,  as  it  came  up  trem- 
bling in  its  silver  beauty,  above  the  eastern  hills.  Then,  when 
the  first  rays  of  the  sun  illumined  the  valleys,  he  hailed  its  rising, 
and  proclaimed  to  the  people  around  him  their  duty  of  worship 
to  the  coming  God.  This  is  the  theory  that  would  connect  Ire- 
land's round  towers  with  the  most  ancient  form  of  religion^ — the 
false  religion  which  truth  dispelled,  when,  coming  with  the  sun 
of  heaven,  and  showing  before  Irish  intellect  the  glories  of  the 
risen  Saviour — the  brightness  of  the  heavenly  sun  dimmed  for 
ever  the  glory  of  the  earthly,  and  dispelled  the  darkness  of  the 
human  soul,  which  had  filled  the  land  before  with  its  gloom.  This 
is  not  the  time  nor  the  place  to  enter  into  an  archaeological  ar- 
gument as  to  whether  the  round  towers  are  of  Pagan  or  Chris- 
tian origin,  or  as  to  whether  they  are  the  offspring  of  the  famous 
Goban  Saor,  or  of  any  other  architect,  or  of  the  men  of  the  fifth  or 
of  the  sixth  centuries ;  or  whether  they  go  back  into  the  times 
of  which  no  vestige  remains  upon  the  pages  of  history,  or  in  the 
traditions  of  men  ;  this,  I  say,  is  not  the  time  to  do  it.  I  at- 
tempted this  once,  and  whilst  I  was  pursuing  my  argument,  as 
I  imagined,  very  learnedly  and  very  profoundly,  I  saw  a  man, 
sitting  opposite  to  me,  open  his  mouth,  and  he  gave  a  yawn ; 
and  I  said  in  my  own  mind,  to  myself,  "  My  dear  friend,  if  you 
do  not  close  your  dissertation,  that  man  will  never  shut  his 
meuth  ; "   for  I  thought  the  top  of  his  head  would  come  off 


202  The  History  of  Ireland,  as 

But  no  matter  what  may  be  the  truth  of  this  theory  or  that,  con- 
cerning the  round  towers,  one  thing  is  certain,  and  this  is  the 
point  to  which  I  wish  to  speak — that,  as  they  stand  to-day,  in 
the  strength  of  their  material,  in  the  beauty  of  their  form,  in  the 
perfection  of  their  architecture,  in  the  scientific  principles  upon 
which  they  were  built,  and  which  they  reveal,  they  are  the  most 
ancient  amongst  the  records  of  the  most  ancient  nations,  and 
distinctly  tell  the  glorious  tale  of  the  early  civilization  of  the 
Irish  people.  For,  my  friends,  remember  that,  amongst  the  evi- 
dences of  progress,  of  civilization,  amongst  the  nations,  there  is 
no  more  powerful  argument  or  evidence  than  that  which  is  given 
by  their  public  buildings.  When  you  reflect  that  many  centu- 
ries afterwards — ages  after  ages — even  after  Ireland  had  become 
Catholic — there  was  no  such  thing  in  England  as  a  stone  build- 
ing of  any  kind,  much  less  a  stone  church — when  you  reflect 
that  outside  the  pale  of  the  ancient  civilization  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  there  was  no  such  thing  known  amongst  the  northern 
and  western  nations  of  Europe  as  a  stone  edifice  of  any  kind  ; 
then  I  say,  from  this,  I  conclude  that  these  venerable  pillar 
temples  of  Ireland  are  the  strongest  argument  for  the  ancient 
civilization  of  our  race.  But  this  also  explains  the  fact  that  St. 
Patrick,  when  he  preached  in  Ireland,  was  not  persecuted ;  that 
he  was  not  contradicted  ;  that  it  was  not  asked  of  him,  as  of 
every  other  man  that  ever  preached  the  Gospel  for  the  first  time 
to  any  people,  to  shed  his  blood  in  proof  of  his  belief.  No,  he 
came  not  to  a  barbarous  people — not  to  an  uncivilized  race  ;  but 
he  came  to  a  wonderfully  civilized  nation — a  nation  which, 
though  under  the  cloud  of  a  false  religion,  had  yet  attained  to  es- 
tablished laws  and  a  recognized  and  settled  form  of  government, 
a  high  philosophical  knowledge,  a  splendid  national  melody  and 
poetry ;  and  her  bards,  and  the  men  who  met  St.  Patrick,  upon 
the  Hill  of  Tara,  when  he  mounted  it  on  that  Easter  morning 
were  able  to  meet  him  with  solid  arguments;  were  able  to  meet 
him  with  the  clash  which  takes  place  when  mind  meets  mind  ; 
and  when  he  had  convinced  them,  they  showed  the  greatest 
proof  of  their  civilization  by  rising  up,  on  the  instant,  to  declare 
that  Patrick's  preaching  was  the  truth,  and  that  Patrick  was  a 
messenger  of  the  true  God.  We  know  for  certain  that,  what- 
ever was  the  origin  of  those  round  towers,  the  Church — the 
Catholic  Church  in  Ireland — made  use  of  them  for  religious  pur- 


Told  in  Her  Ruins.  203 

poses;  that  she  built  her  cathedrals  and  her  abbey  churches 
alongside  of  them ;  and  we  often  find  the  loving  group  of  the 
"  Seven  Churches,"  lying  closely  beside,  if  not  under  the  shadow 
of,  the  round  towers.  We  also  know  that  the  monks  of  old  set 
the  Cross  of  Christ  on  these  ancient  round  towers — that  is,  on 
the  upper  part  of  them ;  and  we  know,  from  the  evidence  of  a 
later  day,  that  when  the  land  was  deluged  in  blood,  and  when 
the  faithful  people  were  persecuted,  hunted  down — then  it  was 
usual,  as  in  the  olden  time,  to  light  a  fire  in  the  upper  portion 
of  those  round  towers,  in  order  that  the  poor  and  persecuted 
might  know  where  to  find  the  sanctuary  of  God's  altar.  Thus 
it  was  that,  no  matter  for  what  purpose  they  were  founded,  the 
Church  of  God  made  use  of  them  for  purposes  of  charity,  of  re- 
ligion, and  of  mercy. 

Coming  down  from  these  steep  heights  of  history ;  coming 
down — like  Moses  from  the  mountain — from  out  the  mysteries 
that  envelop  the  cradle  of  our  race,  but,  like  the  prophet  of 
old,  with  the  evidence  of  our  nation's  ancient  civilization  and 
renown  beaming  upon  us — we  now  come  to  the  Hill  of  Tara. 
Alas,  the  place  where  Ireland's  monarch  sat  enthroned,  the 
place  where  Ireland's  sages  and  seers  met,  where  Ireland's 
poets  and  bards  filled  the  air  with  the  rich  harmony  of  our 
ancient  Celtic  melody,  is  now  desolate ;  not  a  stone  upon  a 
stone  to  attest  its  ancient  glory.  "  Perierunt  etiam  ruince  !  " — 
the  very  ruins  of  it  have  perished.  The  mounds  are  there,  the 
old  moat  is  there,  showing  the  circumvallation  of  the  ancient 
towers  of  Tara ;  the  old  moat  is  there,  still  traced  by  the  un- 
broken mound  whereby  the  "  Banquet  Hall,"  three  hundred  and 
sixty  feet  long,  by  forty  feet  in  width,  was  formed,  and  in  which 
the  kings  of  Ireland  entertained  their  chieftains,  their  royal 
dames,  and  their  guests,  in  high  festival  and  glorious  revelry. 
Beyond  this  no  vestige  remains.  But  there,  within  the  moat — 
in  the  very  midst  of  the  ruins — there,  perhaps,  on  the  very  spot 
where  Ireland's  ancient  throne  was  raised — there  is  a  long, 
grass-grown  mound ;  the  earth  is  raised ;  it  is  covered  with  a 
verdant  sod  ;  the  shamrock  blooms  upon  it,  and  the  old  peasants 
will  tell  you,  this  is  the  "Croppy's  Grave."  In  the  year  1798, 
the  "  year  of  the  troubles,"  as  we  may  well  call  it,  some  ninety 
Wexford  men,  or  thereabouts,  after  the  news  came  that  "  the 
cause  was  lost,"  fought  their  way,  every  inch,  from  Wexford 


204  The  History  of  Ireland,  as 

until  they  came  to  the  Hill  of  Tara,  and  made  their  last  stand 
on  the  banks  of  the  River  Boyne.  There,  pursued  by  a  great 
number  of  the  king's  dragoons,  they  fought  their  way  through 
these  two  miles  of  intervening  country,  their  faces  to  the  foe. 
These  ninety  heroes,  surrounded,  fired  upon,  still  fought  and 
would  not  yield,  until  slowly,  like  the  Spartan  band  at  Ther- 
mopylae, they  gained  the  Hill  of  Tara,  and  stood  there  like  lions 
at  bay.  Surrounded  on  all  sides  by  the  soldiers,  the  officer  in 
command  offered  them  their  lives  if  they  would  only  lay  down 
their  arms.  One  of  these  "  Shelmaliers  "  had  that  morning  sent 
the  colonel  of  the  dragoons  to  take  a  cold  bath  in  the  Boyne. 
In  an  evil  hour  the  Wexford  men,  trusting  to  the  plighted  faith 
of  this  British  officer,  laid  down  their  arms ;  and,  as  soon  as 
their  guns  were  out  of  their  hands,  every  man  of  them  was  fired 
upon ;  and  to  the  last  one,  they  perished  upon  the  Hill  of  Tara. 
And  there  they  were  enshrined  among  the  ancient  glories  of 
Ireland,  and  laid  in  the  "  Croppy's  Grave."  And  they  tell 
how,  in  1843,  when  O'Connell  was  holding  his  monster  meet- 
ings throughout  the  land — in  the  early  morning,  he  stood  upon 
the  Hill  of  Tara,  with  a  hundred  thousand  brave,  strong  Irish- 
men around  him.  There  was  a  tent  pitched  upon  the  hill-top  ; 
there  was  an  altar  erected,  and  an  aged  priest  went  to  offer  up 
the  Mass  for  the  people.  But  the  old  women — the  women  with 
the  gray  heads,  who  were  blooming  maidens  in  '98 — came  from 
every  side;  and  they  all  knelt  round  the  "Croppy's  Grave;" 
and  just  as  the  priest  began  the  Mass,  and  the  one  hundred 
thousand  on  the  hill-sides  and  in  the  vales  below  were  uniting 
in  adoration,  a  loud  cry  of  wailing  pierced  the  air.  It  was  the 
Irish  mothers  and  the  Irish  maidens  pouring  out  their  souls  in 
sorrow,  and  wetting  with  their  tears  the  shamrocks  that  grew 
out  of  the  "  Croppy's  Grave:  " 

"  Dark  falls  the  tear  of  him  that  mourneth 
Lost  hope  or  joy  that  never  returneth ; 
But  brightly  flows  the  tear 
Wept  o'er  a  hero's  bier." 

Tara  and  its  glories  are  things  of  the  past ;  Tara  and  its  mon- 
archs  are  gone ;  but  the  spirit  that  crowned  them  at  Tara  has 
not  died  with  them ;  the  spirit  that  summoned  bard  and  chief 
to  surround  their  throne  has  not  expired  with  them.  That 
spirit  was  the  spirit  of  Ireland's  nationality;   and  that  spirit 


Told  in  Her  Ruins.  205 

lives  to-day  as  strong,  as  fervid,  and  as  glorious  as  ever  it 
burned  during  the  ages  of  persecution  ;  as  it  ever  lived  in  the 
hearts  of  the  Irish  race. 

And  now,  my  friends,  treading,  as  it  were,  adown  the  hill-side, 
after  having  heard  Patrick's  voice,  after  having  beheld,  on  the 
threshold  of  Tara,  Patrick's  glorious  episcopal  figure,  as,  with 
the  simplicity  that  designated  his  grand,  heroic  character,  he 
plucked  from  the  soil  the  shamrock  and  upheld  it,  and  appealed 
to  the  imagination  of  Ireland — appealed  to  that  imagination 
that  never  yet  failed  to  recognize  a  thing  of  truth  or  a  thing 
of  beauty — we  now  descend  the  hill,  and  wander  through  the 
land  where  we  first  beheld  the  group  of  the  "  Seven  Churches." 
Everywhere  throughout  the  land  do  we  see  the  clustering  ruins 
of  these  small  churches.  Seldom  exceeding  fifty  feet  in  length, 
they  rarely  attain  to  any  such  proportion.  There  they  are,  gen- 
erally speaking,  under  the  shadow  of  some  old  round  tower — 
some  ancient  Celtic  name,  indicative  of  past  glory,  still  linger- 
ing around  and  sanctifying  them.  What  were  these  seven 
churches  ?  what  is  the  meaning  of  them  ?  why  were  they  so 
numerous?  Why,  there  were  churches  enough,  if  we  believe 
the  ruins  of  Ireland,  in  Ireland  during  the  first  two  centuries  of 
its  Christianity,  to  house  the  whole  nation.  Everywhere  there 
were  churches — churches  in  groups  of  seven — as  if  one  were  not 
enough,  or  two.  Nowadays,  we  are  struck  with  the  multitude 
of  churches  in  London,  in  Dublin,  in  New  York  ;  but  we  must 
remember  that  we  are  a  divided  community,  and  that  every 
sect,  no  matter  how  small  it  is,  builds  its  own  church  ;  but  in 
Ireland  we  were  all  of  one  faith ;  and  all  of  these  churches  were 
multiplied.  But  what  is  the  meaning  of  it?  These  churches 
were  built  in  the  early  days  of  Ireland's  monasticism — in  the 
days  when  the  world  acknowledged  the  miracle  of  Ireland's 
holiness.  Never,  since  God  created  the  earth — never,  since 
$  Christ  proclaimed  the  truth  amongst  men — never  was  seen  so 
extraordinary  and  so  miraculous  a  thing  as  that  a  people  should 
become,  almost  entirely,  a  nation  of  monks  and  nuns,  as  soon  as 
they  became  Catholic  and  Christian.  The  highest  proof  of  the 
Gospel  is  monasticism.  As  I  stand  before  you,  robed  in  this 
Dominican  dress — most  unworthy  to  wear  it — still,  as  I  stand 
before  you,  a  monk,  vowed  to  God  by  poverty,  chastity,  and 
obedience — I  claim  for  myself,  such  as  I  am,  this  glorious  title 


206  The  History  of  Ireland,  as 

that  the  Church  of  God  regards  us  as  the  very  best  of  her  chil- 
dren. And  why?  Because  the  cream,  as  it  were,  of  the  Gospel 
spirit  is  sacrifice ;  and  the  highest  sacrifice  is  the  sacrifice  that 
gives  a  man  entirely,  without  the  slightest  reserve,  to  God,  in 
the  service  of  his  country  and  of  his  fellow-men.  This  sacrifice 
is  embodied  and,  as  it  were,  combined  in  the  monk  ;  and,  there- 
fore, the  monk  and  the  nun  are  really  the  highest  productions 
of  Christianity.  Now,  Ireland,  in  the  very  first  days  of  her  con- 
version, so  quickly  caught  up  the  spirit  and  so  thoroughly  en- 
tered into  the  genius  of  the  Gospel,  that  she  became  a  nation 
of  monks  and  nuns,  almost  on  the  day  when  she  became  a  na- 
tion of  Christians.  The  consequence  was,  that  throughout  the 
land — in  the  villages,  in  every  little  town,  on  every  hill-side,  in 
every  valley,  these  holy  monks  were  to  be  found  ;  and  they 
were  called  by  the  people,  who  loved  them  and  venerated  them 
so  dearly — they  were  called  by  the  name  of  Ctddees,  or  servants 
of  God. 

Then  came,  almost  at  the  very  moment  of  Ireland's  conversion 
and  Ireland's  abundant  monasticism,  embodied,  as  it  were,  and 
sustained  by  that  rule  of  St.  Columba  which  St.  Patrick  brought 
into  Ireland — having  got  it  from  St.  Martin  of  Tours — then 
came,  at  that  very  time,  the  ruin  and  the  desolation  of  almost 
all  the  rest  of  the  world.  Rome  was  in  flames  ;  and  the  ancient 
Pagan  civilization  of  thousands  of  years  was  gone.  Hordes  of 
barbarians  poured,  in  streams,  over  the  world.  The  whole  of 
that  formerly  civilized  world  seemed  to  be  falling  back  again 
into  the  darkness  and  chaos  of  the  barbarism  of  the  earliest 
times  ;  but  Ireland,  sheltered  by  the  encircling  waves,  converted 
and  sanctified,  kept  her  national  freedom.  No  invader  profaned 
her  virgin  soil ;  no  sword  was  drawn,  nor  cry  of  battle  or  feud 
resounded  through  the  land  :  and  the  consequence  was,  that 
Ireland,  developing  her  schools,  entering  into  every  field  of 
learning,  produced,  in  almost  every  monk,  a  man  fitted  to  teich 
his  fellow-men  and  enlighten  the  world.  And  the  whole  world 
came  to  their  monasteries,  from  every  clime,  as  I  have  said  be- 
fore ;  they  filled  the  land  ;  and  for  three  hundred  years,  without 
the  shadow  of  a  doubt,  history  declares  that  Ireland  held  the 
intellectual  supremacy  of  the  civilized  world.  Then  were  built 
those  groups  of  seven  churches,  here  and  there  ;  then  did  ibey 
fill  the  land  ;  then,  when  the  morning  sun  arose,  every  valley  in 


Told  in  Her  Rums.  207 

ble  .sed  Ireland  resounded  to  the  praises  and  the  matin-song  of 
the  monk  ;  then  the  glorious  cloisters  of  Lismore,  of  Armagh, 
of  Bangor,  of  Arran  arose  ;  and,  far  out  in  the  western  ocean, 
the  glorious  chorus  resounded  in  praise  of  God,  and  the  musical 
genius  of  the  people  received  its  highest  development  in  hymns 
and  canticles  of  praise — the  expression  of  their  glorious  faith. 
For  three  hundred  years  of  peace  and  joy  it  lasted  ;  and,  during 
those  three  hundred  years,  Ireland  sent  forth  a  Columba  to 
Iona;  a  Virgilius  to  Italy;  a  Romauld  to  Brabant;  a  Gaul  (or 
Gallus)  to  France — in  a  word,  every  nation  in  Europe — even 
Rome  itself-  -all  acknowledged  that,  in  those  days,  the  light 
of  learning  and  of  sanctity  beamed  upon  them  from  the  holy 
progeny  of  saints,  that  Ireland,  the  fairest  mother  of  saints, 
produced  and  sent  out  to  sanctify  and  enlighten  the  world. 
And,  mark  you,  my  friends,  these  Irish  monks  were  fear- 
less men.  They  were  the  most  learned  men  in  the  world. 
For  instance,  there  was  one  of  them — at  home  he  was  called 
Fearghal,  abroad  he  was  called  Virgilius  ;  this  man  was  a  great 
astronomer  ;  and,  as  early  as  the  seventh  century,  he  discovered 
the  rotundity  of  the  earth,  proclaimed  that  it  was  a  sphere, 
and  declared  the  existence  of  the  antipodes.  In  those  days 
everybody  thought  that  the  earth  was  as  flat  as  a  pancake ;  and 
the  idea  was,  that  a  man  could  walk  as  far  as  the  land  brought 
him,  and  he  would  then  drop  into  the  sea  ;  and  that  if  he  took 
ship  then,  and  sailed  on  to  a  certain  point,  why,  then  he  would 
go  into  nothing  at  all.  So,  when  this  Irish  monk,  skilled  in 
Irish  science,  wrote  a  book,  and  asserted  this,  which  was  re- 
cognized in  after  ages  and  proclaimed  as  a  mighty  discovery, 
the  philosophers  and  learned  men  of  the  time  were  astonished. 
They  thought  it  was  heresy,  and  they  did  the  most  natural 
thing  in  the  world — they  complained  to  the  pope  of  him  ;  and 
the  pope  sent  for  him,  examined  him,  examined  his  theory,  and 
examined  his  astronomical  system  ;  and  this  is  the  answer,  and 
the  best  answer,  I  can  give  to  those  who  say  that  the  Catholic 
Church  is  not  the  friend  of  science  or  of  progress.  What  do 
you  think  is  the  punishment  the  pope  gave  him  ?  The  pope 
made  him  Archbishop  of  Salzburg.  He  told  him  to  continue 
his  discoveries — continue  your  studies,  he  said ;  mind  your 
prayers,  and  try  and  discover  all  the  scientific  truth  that  you 
can  ;  for  you  are  a  learned  man.     Well,  Fearghal  continued  his 


208  The  History  of  Ireland,  as 

studies,  and  so  well  did  he  study  that  he  anticipated,  by  cen- 
turies, some  of  the  most  highly  practical  discoveries  of  modern 
ages ;  and  so  well  did  he  mind  his  prayers,  that  Pope  Gregory 
the  Tenth  canonized  him  after  his  death. 

The  Danish  invasion  came,  and  I  need  not  tell  you  that  these 
Northern  warriors  who  landed^at  the  close  of  the  eighth  cen- 
tury, effecting  their  first  landing  near  where  the  town  of 
Skerries  stands  now,  between  Dublin  and  Balbriggan,  on  the 
eastern  coast — that  these  men,  thus  coming,  came  as  plunderers, 
and  enemies  of  the  religion  as  well  as  of  the  nationality  of  the 
people.  And  for  three  hundred  years,  wherever  they  came, 
and  wherever  they  went,  the  first  thing  they  did  was  to  put  to 
death  all  the  monks,  and  all  the  nuns,  set  fire  to  the  schools, 
and  banish  the  students ;  and,  inflamed  in  this  way  with  the 
blood  of  the  peaceful,  they  sought  to  kill  all  the  Irish  friars ; 
and  a  war  of  extermination — a  war  of  interminable  struggle 
and  duration,  was  carried  on  for  three  hundred  years.  Ireland 
fought  them  ;  the  Irish  kings  and  chieftains  fought  them.  We 
read  that  in  one  battle  alone,  at  Glenamada,  in  the  county  of 
Wicklow,  King  Malachi,  he  who  wore  the  "  collar  of  gold,"  and 
the  great  King  Brian,  joined  their  forces  in  the  cause  of  Ire- 
land. In  that  grand  day,  when  the  morning  sun  arose,  the 
battle  began :  and  it  was  not  until  the  sun  set  in  the  evening 
that  the  last  Dane  was  swept  from  the  field,  and  they  withdrew 
to  their  ships,  leaving  six  thousand  dead  bodies  of  their 
warriors  behind  them.  Thus  did  Ireland,  united,  know  how  to 
deal  with  her  Danish  invaders ;  thus  would  Ireland  have  dealt 
with  Fitzstephen  and  his  Normans  ;  but,  on  the  day  when  they 
landed,  the  curse  of  disunion  and  discord  was  amongst  the 
people  Finally,  after  three  hundred  years  of  invasion,  Brian, 
on  that  Good  Friday  of  1014,  cast  out  the  Danes  forever,  and 
from  the  plains  of  Clontarf  drove  them  into  Dublin  Bay. 
Well,  behind  them  they  left  the  ruins  of  all  the  religion  they  had 
found.  They  left  a  people,  who  had,  indeed,  not  lost  their 
faith,  but  a  people  who  were  terribly  shaken  and  demoralized 
by  three  hundred  years  of  bloodshed  and  of  war.  One-half  of 
it — one-sixth  of  it — would  have  been  sufficient  to  ruin  any 
other  people  ;  but  the  element  that  kept  Ireland  alive — the  ele- 
ment that  kept  the  Irish  nationality  alive  in  the  hearts  of  the 
people — the  element  that  preserved  civilization  in  spite  of  three 


Told  in  Her  Ruins.  209 

centuries  of  war,  was  the  element  of  Ireland's  faith,  and  the 
traditions  of  the  nation's  by-gone  glory. 

And  now  we  arrive  at  the  year  1 134.  Thirty  years  before,  in 
the  year  1103,  the  last  Danish  army  was  conquered  and  routed 
on  the  shores  of  Strangford  Lough,  in  the  North,  and  the  last 
Danish  King  took  his  departure  forever  from  the  green  shores 
of  Erin.  Thirty  years  have  elapsed.  Ireland  is  struggling  to 
restore  her  shattered  temples,  her  ruined  altars,  and  to  build  up 
again,  in  all  its  former  glory  and  sanctity,  her  nationality  and 
monastic  priesthood.  Then  St.  Malachi — great,  glorious,  and 
venerable  name ! — St.  Malachi,  in  whom  the  best  blood  of  Ire- 
land's kings  was  mingled  with  the  best  blood  of  Ireland's  saints 
— was  Archbishop  of  Armagh.  In  the  year  1134,  he  invited 
into  Ireland  the  Cistercian  and  the  Benedictine  monks.  They 
came  with  all  the  traditions  of  the  most  exalted  sanctity — with 
a  spirit  not  less  mild  nor  less  holy  than  the  spirit  of  a  Dominic 
or  an  Augustine,  and  built  up  the  glories  of  Lindisfarne,  of 
Iona,  of  Mellifont,  of  Monasterboice,  and  of  Monastereven, 
and  all  these  magnificent  ruins  of  which  I  spoke — the  sacred 
monastic  ruins  of  Ireland.  Then  the  wondering  world  beheld 
such  grand  achievements  as  it  never  saw  before,  outrivalling 
in  the  splendor  of  their  magnificence  the  grandeur  of  those 
temples  which  still  attest  the  mediaeval  greatness  of  Bel- 
gium, of  France,  and  of  Italy.  Then  did  the  Irish  people 
see,  enshrined  in  these  houses,  the  holy  solitaries  and  monks 
from  Clairveaux,  with  the  light  of  the  great  St.  Bernard  shining 
upon  them  from  his  grave.  But  only  thirty  years  more  passed 
— thirty  years  only;  and,  behold,  a  trumpet  is  heard  on  the 
eastern  coast  of  Ireland  :  the  shore  and  the  hills  of  that  Wex- 
ford coast  re-echo  to  the  shouts  of  the  Norman,  as  he  sets  his 
accursed  foot  upon  the  soil  of  Erin.  Divided  as  the  nation  was 
— chieftain  fighting  against  chieftain — for,  when  the  great  King 
Brian  was  slain  at  Clontarf,  and  his  son  and  his  grandson  were 
killed,  and  the  three  generations  of  the  royal  family  thus  swept 
away — every  strong  man  in  the  land  stood  up  and  put  in  his 
claim  for  the  sovereignty — by  this  division  the  Anglo-Norman 
was  able  to  ~fix  himself  in  the  land.  Battles  were  fought  on 
every  hill  in  Ireland ;  the  most  horrible  scenes  of  the  Danish 
invasion  were  renewed  again.  But  Ireland  is  no  longer  able  to 
shake  the  Saxon  from  her  bosom ;  for  Ireland  is  no  longer  able 

14 


2io  The  History  of  Ireland,  as 

to  strike  him  as  one  man.  The  name  of  "  United  Irishmen" 
has  been  a  name,  and  nothing  but  a  name,  since  the  day  that 
Brian  Boru  was  slain  at  Clontarf  until  this  present  moment. 
Would  to  God  that  this  name  of  United  Irishmen  meant  some- 
thing more  than  an  idle  word  !  Would  to  God  that,  again,  to- 
day, we  were  all  united  for  some  great  and  glorious  purpose  ! 
Would  to  God  that  the  blessing  of  our  ancient,  glorious  unity 
was  upon  us  !  Would  to  God  that  the  blessing  even  of  a  com- 
mon purpose  in  the  love  of  our  country  guided  us  !  then,  indeed, 
would  the  Celtic  race  and  the  Celtic  nation  be  as  strong  as  ever 
it  was— as  strong  as  it  was  upon  that  evening  at  Clontarf,  which 
beheld  Erin  weeping  over  her  martyred  Brian,  but  beheld  her 
with  the  crown  still  upon  her  brow. 

Sometimes  victorious,  yet  oftener  defeated — defeated  not  so 
much  by  the  shock  of  the  Norman  onset  as  by  the  treachery 
and  the  feuds  of  her  own  chieftains — the  heart  of  the  nation  was 
broken  ;  and  behold,  from  the  far  sunny  shores  of  Italy,  there 
came  to  Ireland  other  monks  and  other  missionaries,  clothed  in 
this  very  habit  which  I  now  wear,  or  in  the  sweet  brown  habit 
of  St.  Francis,  or  the  glorious  dress  of  St.  Augustine.  Unlike 
the  monks  who  gave  themselves  up  to  contemplation,  and  who 
had  large  possessions,  large  houses — these  men  came  among  the 
people,  to  make  themselves  at  home  among  the  people,  to  be- 
come the  "  soggarths  aroon"  of  Ireland.  They  came  with  a 
learning  as'  great  as  that  of  the  Irish  monks  of  old — with  a 
sturdy  devotion,  as  energetic  as  that  of  Columbkille,  or  of 
Kevin  of  Glendalough  ;  they  came  with  a  message  of  peace,  of 
consolation,  and  of  hope  to  this  heart-broken  people ;  and  they 
came  nearly  seven  hundred  years  ago  to  the  Irish  shores.  The 
Irish  people  received  them  with  a  kind  of  supernatural  instinct 
that  they  had  found  their  champions  and  -their  priestly  heroes  , 
and  for  nearly  seven  hundred  years  the  Franciscan  and  his 
Dominican  brother  have  dwelt  together  in  the  land.  Instead  of 
building  up  magnificent,  wonderful  edifices,  like  Holy  Cross,  or 
Mcllifont,  or  Dunbrodie ;  instead  of  covering  acres  with  the 
grandeur  of  their  buildings,  these  Dominicans  and  Franciscans 
went  out  in  small  companies — ten,  or  twelve,  or  twenty — and 
they  went  into  remote  towns  and  villages,  and  there  they  dwelt, 
and  built  quietly  a  convent  for  themselves;  and  they  educated 
the  people  themselves ;  and,  by-and-by,  the  people  in  the  next 


Told  in  Her  Ruins.  211 

generation  learned  to  love  the  disciples  of  St.  Dominic  and  St. 
Francis,  as  they  beheld  the  churches  so  multiplied.  In  every 
townland  of  Ireland  there  was  either  a  Dominican  or  a  Franciscan 
church  or  convent.  The  priests  of  Ireland  welcomed  them  ;  the 
holy  bishops  of  Ireland  sustained  them  ;  the  ancient  religious 
of  Ireland  gave  them  the  right-hand  of  friendship ;  and  the  Cis- 
tercians or  Benedictines  gave  them,  very  often,  indeed,  some  of 
their  own  churches  wherein  to  found  their  congregation,  or  to 
begin  their  missions.  They  came  to  dwell  in  the  land  early  in 
the  twelfth  century,  and,  until  the  fifteenth  century,  strange  to 
say,  it  was  not  yet  found  out  what  was  the  hidden  design  of 
Providence  in  bringing  them  there,  in  what  was  once  their  own 
true  and  ancient  missionary  Ireland. 

During  these  three  hundred  years,  the  combat  for  Ireland's 
nationality  was  still  continued.  The  O'Neill,  the  O'Brien,  the 
O'Donnell,  the  McGuire,  the  O'More,  kept  the  national  sword 
waving  in  the  air.  The  Franciscans  and  the  Dominicans  cheered 
them,  entered  into  their  feelings,  and  they  could  only  not  be 
said  to  be  more  Irish  than  the  Irish  themselves,  because  they 
were  the  heart's  blood  of  Ireland.  They  were  the  light  of  the 
national  councils  of  the  chieftains  of  Ireland,  as  their  historians 
were  the  faithful  annalists  of  the  glories  of  these  days  of  combat. 
They  saw  the  trouble ;  and  yet,  for  three  hundred  years  the 
Franciscan  and  the  Dominican  had  not  discovered  what  his  real 
mission  to  Ireland  was.  But  at  the  end  of  the  three  hundred 
years  came  the  fifteenth  century.  Then  came  the  cloud  of  relig- 
ious persecution  over  the  land.  All  the  hatred  that  divided  the 
Saxon  and  the  Celt,  on  the  principle  of  nationality,  was  now  height- 
ened by  the  additional  hatred  of  religious  discord  and  division ; 
and  Irishmen,  if  they  hated  the  Saxon  before,  as  the  enemy  of 
Ireland's  nationality,  from  the  fifteenth  century  hated  him  with 
an  additional  hatred,  as  the  enemy  of  Ireland's  faith  and  Ire- 
land's religion.  The  sword  was  drawn.  My  friends,  I  speak 
not  in  indignation,  but  in  sorrow  ;  and  I  know  that  if  there  be 
one  amongst  you,  my  fellow-countrymen,  here  to-night — if  there 
be  a  man  who  differs  with  me  in  religion — to  that  man  I  say: 
"  Brother  and  friend,  you  feel  as  deeply  as  I  do  a  feeling  of  iru 
dignation  and  of  regret  for  the  religious  persecution  of  our  native 
land."  No  man  feels  it  more — no  man  regrets  more  bitterly  the 
element  of  religious  discord,  the  terrible  persecution  of  these 


212  The  History  of  Ireland,  as 

three  hundred  years,  through  which  Ireland — Catholic  Ireland 
— has  been  obliged  to  pass ;  no  man  feels  this  more  than  the 
high-minded,  honest,  kind-hearted  Irish  Protestant.  And  why 
should  he  not  feel  it  ?  If  it  was  Catholic  Ireland  that  had  per- 
secuted Protestant  Ireland  for  that  time,  and  with  such  inten 
sity,  I  should  hang  my  head  for  shame. 

Well,  that  mild,  scrupulous,  holy  man,  Henry  the  Eighth,  in 
the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century  got  a  scruple  of  conscience  ! 
Perhaps  it  was  whilst  he  was  saying  his  prayers — he  began  to 
get  uneasy,  and  to  be  afraid  that,  maybe,  his  wife  wasn't  his 
wife  at  all !  He  wrote  a  letter  to  the  pope,  and  he  said:  "  Holy 
Father,  I  am  very  uneasy  in  my  mind  !  "  The  fact  was,  there 
was  a  very  nice  young  lady  in  the  court.  Her  name  was  Anna 
Boleyn.  She  was  a  great  beauty.  Henry  got  very  fond  of  her, 
and  he  wanted  to  marry  her.  But  he  could  not  marry  her,  be- 
cause he  was  already  a  married  man.  So  he  wrote  to  the  pope, 
and  he  said  he  was  uneasy  in  his  mind — he  had  a  scruple  of 
conscience ;  and  he  said :  "  Holy  Father,  grant  me  a  favor. 
Grant  me  a  divorce  from  Catherine  of  Arragon.  I  have  been 
married  to  her  for  several  years.  She  has  had  several  children 
by  me.  Just  grant  me  this  little  favor.  I  want  a  divorce  !  " 
The  pope  sent  back  word  to  him  :  "  Don't  be  uneasy  at  all  in 
your  mind !  Stick  to  your  wife  like  a  man ;  and  don't  be 
troubling  me  with  your  scruples."  Well,  Henry  threw  the  pope 
over.  He  married  the  young  woman  whilst  his  former  wife  was 
living — and  he  should  have  been  taken  that  very  day  and  tried 
before  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England,  and  transported  for 
life.  And  why  ?  Because  if  it  had  been  any  other  man  in 
England  that  did  it  but  the  king,  that  man  would  have  been 
transported  for  life ;  and  the  king  is  as  much  bound  by  the 
laws  of  God,  and  of  justice,  and  conscience,  and  morality,  as 
any  other  man.  When  Henry  separated  from  the  pope  he 
made  himself  head  of  the  Church  ;  and  he  told  the  people  of 
England  that  he  would  manage  their  consciences  for  them 
for  the  future.  But  when  he  called  upon  Ireland  to  join  him 
in  this  strange  and  (indeed  I  think  my  Protestant  friends  will 
admit)  insane  act, — (for  such,  indeed,  I  think  my  Protestant 
friends  will  admit  this  act  to  be ;  for,  I  think,  it  was  nothing 
short  of  insanity  for  any  man  of  sense  to  say :  "  I  will  take 
the  law  of  God  as  preached  from  the  lips  and  illustrated  ia 


Told  in  Her  Ruins.  213 

the  life  of  Henry  the   Eighth "),  Ireland  refused.     Henry 

drew  the  sword,  and  declared  that  Ireland  should  acknowledge 
him  as  the  head  of  the  Church ;  that  she  should  part  with  her 
ancient  faith,  and  with  all  the  traditions  of  her  history,  to 
sustain  him  in  his  measures,  or  that  he  would  exterminate  the 
Irish  race.  Another  scruple  of  conscience  came  to  this  tender- 
hearted man  !  And  what  do  you  think  it  was  ?  Oh,  he  said,  I 
am  greatly  afraid  the  friars  and  the  priests  are  not  leading  good 
lives.  So  he  set  up  what  we  call  a  "  commission  ;"  and  he  sent 
it  to  Ireland  to  inquire  what  sort  of  lives  the  monks  and  friars 
and  priests  and  nuns  were  leading  ;  and  the  commissioners  sent 
back  word  to  him,  that  they  could  not  find  any  great  fault  with 
them ;  but  that,  on  the  whole,  they  thought  it  would  be  better 
to  turn  them  out !  So  they  took  their  convents  and  their 
churches,  and  whatever  little  property  they  possessed,  and  these 
commissioners  sold  them,  and  put  the  money  into  their  own 
pockets.  There  was  a  beautiful  simplicity  about  the  whole  plan. 
Well,  my  friends,  then  came  the  hour  of  the  ruin  of  the  dear  old 
convents  of  the  Franciscans  and  Dominicans.  Their  inmates 
were  driven  out  at  the  point  of  the  sword ;  they  were  scattered 
like  sheep  over  the  land.  Five  pounds  was  the  price  set  upon 
the  head  of  the  friar  or  priest — the  same  price  that  was  set  upon 
the  head  of  a  wolf.  They  were  hunted  throughout  the  land  ; 
and  when  they  fled  for  their  lives  from  their  convent  homes, 
the  Irish  people  opened  their  hearts,  and  said,  "  Come  to  us, 
Soggarth  Aroon."  Throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the 
land  they  were  scattered,  with  no  shelter  but  the  canopy  of 
heaven ;  with  no  Sunday  sacrifice  to  remind  the  people  of 
God  ;  no  Mass  celebrated  in  public,  and  no  Gospel  preached ; 
and  yet  they  succeeded  for  three  hundred  years  in  preserving 
the  glorious  Catholic  faith,  that  is  as  strong  in  Ireland  to-day  as 
ever  it  was.  These  venerable  ruins  tell  the  tale  of  the  nation's 
woe,  of  the  nation's  sorrow.  As  long  as  it  was  merely  a  ques- 
tion of  destroying  a  Cistercian  or  a  Benedictine  Abbey,  there 
were  so  few  of  these  in  the  land,  that  the  people  did  not  feel  it 
much.-  But  when  the  persecution  came  upon  the  Bhrcahir,  as 
the  friar  was  called — the  men  whom  everybody  knew — the  men 
whom  everybody  came  to  look  up  to  for  consolation  in  afflic- 
tion or  in  sorrow ;  when  it  came  upon  him — then  it  brought 
sorrow  and  affliction  to  every  village,   to  every  little  town — to 


214  The  History  of  Ireland,  as 

every  man  in  Ireland.  There  were,  at  this  time,  upwards  of 
eighty  convents  of  religious — Franciscans  and  Dominicans — in 
Ireland,  that  numbered  very  close  upon  a  thousand  priests  of 
each  order.  There  were  nearly  a  thousand  Irish  Franciscans, 
and  nearly  a  thousand  Irish  Dominican  priests,  when  Henry 
began  his  persecution.  He  was  succeeded,  after  a  brief  interval 
of  thirty  years,  by  his  daughter  Elizabeth.  How  many  Do- 
minicans, do  you  think,  were  ^iien  left  in  Ireland  ?  There  were 
a  thousand,  you  say?  Oh,  God  of  heaven  !  there  were  only 
four  of  them  left — only  four!  All  the  rest  of  these  heroic  men 
had  stained  their  white  habit  with  the  blood  that  they  shed  for 
God  and  for  their  country.  Twenty  thousand  men  it  took 
Elizabeth,  for  as  many  years  as  there  were  thousands  of  them,  to 
try  to  plant  the  seedling  of  Protestantism  on  Irish  soil.  The 
ground  was  dug  as  for  a  grave  ;  the  seed  of  Protestantism  was 
cast  into  that  soil ;  and  the  blood  of  the  nation  was  poured  in, 
to  warm  it  and  bring  it  forth.  It  never  grew — it  never  came 
forth  ;  it  never  bloomed !  Ireland  was  as  Catholic  the  day  that 
Elizabeth  died  at  Hampton  Court,  gnawing  the  flesh  off  her 
hands  in  despair,  and  blaspheming  God — Ireland  was  as  Catho- 
lic that  day  as  she  was  the  day  that  Henry  the  Eighth  vainly 
commanded  her  first  to  become  Protestant. 

Then  came  a  little  breathing-time — a  very  short  time — and 
in  fifty  years  there  were  six  hundred  Irish  Dominican  priests  in 
Ireland  again.  They  studied  in  Spain,  in  France,  in  Italy. 
These  were  the  youth,  the  children,  of  Irish  fathers  and 
mothers,  who  cheerfully  gave  them  up,  though  they  knew, 
almost  to  a  certainty,  that  they  were  devoting  them  to  a  mar- 
tyr's death  ;  but  they  gave  them  up  for  God.  Smuggled  out 
of  the  country,  they  studied  in  these  foreign  lands ;  and  they 
came  back  again,  by  night  and  by  stealth,  and  they  landed 
upon  the  shores  of  Ireland ;  and  when  Cromwell  came  he  found 
six  hundred  Irish  Dominicans  upon  the  Irish  land.  Ten  years 
after — only  ten  years  passed — and  again  the  Irish  Dominican 
preachers  assembled  to  count  up  their  numbers,  and  to  tell  how 
many  survived  and  how  many  had  fallen.  How  many  do  you 
think  were  left  out  of  the  six  hundred  ?  But  one  hundred  and 
fifty  were  left ;  four  hundred  and  fifty  had  perished — had  shed 
their  blood  for  their  country,  or  Lad  been  shipped  away  to  Bar 
badoes  as  slaves.     These  are  the  tales  their  ruins  tell.     I  need 


Told  in  Her  Ruins.  215 

not  speak  of  their  noble  martyrs.  Oh,  if  these  moss-grown 
stones  of  the  Irish  Franciscan  and  Dominican  ruins  could 
speak,  they  would  tell  how  the  people  gave  up  everything  they 
had,  for  years  and  years,  as  wave  after  wave  of  successive  per 
seditions  and  confiscations  and  robbery  rolled  over  them— 
rather  than  renounce  their  glorious  faith  or  their  glorious  priest- 
hood. 

When  Elizabeth  died,  the  Irish  Catholics  thought  her  sue 
cessor,  James  I.,  would  give  them  at  least  leave  to  live  ;  and 
accordingly,  for  a  short  time  after  he  became  king,  James  kept 
his  own  counsel,  and  he  did  not  tell  the  Irish  Catholics  whether 
he  would  grant  them  any  concessions  or  not ;  but  he  must  have 
given  them  some  encouragement,  for  they  befriended  him,  as 
they  had  always  done  to  the  House  of  Stuart.  But  what  do 
you  think  the  people  did  ?  As  soon  as  the  notion  that  they 
would  be  allowed  to  live  in  the  land  took  possession  of  them, 
and  that  they  would  be  allowed  to  take  possession  of  the 
estates  they  had  been  robbed  of— instead  of  minding  them- 
selves, the  very  first  thing  they  did — to  the  credit  of  Irish 
fidelity  be  it  said — was  to  set  about  restoring  the  Franciscan 
and  Dominican  abbeys.  It  was  thus  they  restored  the  Black 
Abbey  in  Kilkenny,  a  Dominican  house;  they  restored  the 
Dominican  Convent  in  Waterford,  Multifarnjiam,  in  West- 
meath,  and  others  ;  and  these  in  a  few  months  grew  up  into  all 
their  former  beauty  from  ruin,  under  the  loving,  faithful,  re- 
storing hands  of  the  Irish  people.  But  soon  came  a  letter 
from  the  king ;  and  it  began  with  these  notable  words :  "  It  has 
been  told  to  us,  that  some  of  our  Irish  subjects  imagined  that 
we  were  about  to  grant  them  liberty  of  conscience."  No  such 
thing  !  Liberty  of  conscience  for  Irish  Catholics  !  No  ! 
Hordes  of  persecutors  were  let  loose  again,  and  the  storms 
of  persecution  that  burst  over  Ireland  in  the  days  of  James 
I.  were  quite  as  bad  and  as  terrible  as  any  that  rained  down 
blood  upon  the  land  in  the  days  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  And  so, 
with  varying  fortunes,  now  of  hope,  and  now  of  fear,  this  self- 
same game  went  on.  The  English  determined  that  they  would 
make  one  part  of  Ireland,  at  least,  Protestant,  and  that  the  fair- 
est and  the  best  portion  of  it,  as  they  imagined— namely,  the 
province  of  Ulster.  Now,  mark  the  simple  way  they  went  about 
it.     They  made  up  their  minds  that  they  would  make  one  pro- 


2 io  The  History  of  Ireland,  as 

vince  of  Ireland  Protestant,  to  begin  with,  in  order  that  it  might 
spread  out  by  degrees  to  the  others.  -And  what  did  they  do? 
They  gave  notice  to  every  Catholic  in  Ulster  to  pack  up  and 
begone — to  leave  the  land.  They  confiscated  every  single  acre 
in  the  fair  province  of  Ulster ;  and  the  Protestant  Primate,  the 
Archbishop  of  Armagh — a  very  holy  man,  who  was  always 
preaching  to  the  people  not  to  be  too  fond  of  the  things  of  this 
world — he  got  forty-three  thousand  acres  of  the  best  land  of 
these  convents -in  fee.  Trinity  College,  in  Dublin,  got  thirty 
thousand  acres.  There  were  certain  guilds  of  traders  in  Lon- 
don— the  "skinners,"  "tanners,"  the  "  drysalters  ;'*  and  what 
do  you  think  these  London  trade  associations  got  ?  They  got 
a  present  of  two  hundred  and  nine  thousand  eight  hundred  acres 
of  the  finest  land  in  Ulster !  Then  all  the  rest  of  the  province 
was  given  in  lots  of  one  thousand,  one  thousand  five  hundred, 
to  two  thousand  acres,  to  Scotchmen  and  Englishmen.  But  the 
very  deed  that  gave  it  obliged  them  to  take  their  oath  that  they 
would  accept  that  land  upon  this  condition — not  so  much  as  to 
give  a  day's  work  to  a  laboring  man,  unless  that  laboring  man 
took  his  oath  that  he  was  not  a  Catholic.  And  so  Ulster  was 
disposed  of.  That  remained  until  Cromwell  came  ;  and  when 
the  second  estimate  was  made  of  the  kingdom  it  was  discovered 
that  there  were  nearly  five  millions  of  acres  lying  still  in  the 
hands  of  the  Catholics.  And  what  did  Cromwell  do  ?  He 
quietly  made  a  law,  and  he  published  it ;  and  he  said,  on  the  1st 
of  May,  1654,  every  Catholic  in  Ireland  was  to  cross  the  Shan- 
non, and  to  go  into  Connaught.  Now,  the  river  Shannon  cuts 
off  five  of  the  western  counties  from  the  rest  of  Ireland,  and 
these  five  counties,  though  very  large  in  extent,  have  more  of 
waste  land,  of  bog,  and  of  hard,  unproductive,  stony  soil  than 
all  the  rest  of  Ireland.  I  am  at  liberty  to  say  this,  because  I, 
myself,  am  the  heart's  blood  of  a  Connaughtman.  If  any  other 
man  said  this  of  Connaught,  I  would  have  to  say  my  prayers, 
and  keep  a  very  sharp  eye  about  me,  to  try  to  keep  my  temper. 
But  it  is  quite  true  ;  with  all  our  love  for  our  native  land,  with 
all  my  love  for  my  native  province — all  that  love  won't  put  a 
blade  of  grass  on  an  acre  of  limestone  ;  and  that  there  are  acres 
of  such,  we  all  know.  It  was  an  acre  of  this  sort  that  a  poor 
fellow  was  building  a  wall  around.  "  What  are  you  building 
that  wall  for?"  says  the  landlord.     "Are  you  afraid  the  cattle 


Told  in  Her  Ruins.  217 

will  get  out?"  "  No,  your  honor,  indeed  I  am  not,"  says  the 
poor  man ;  "  but  I  was  afraid  the  poor  brutes  might  get  in." 
Then  Cromwell  sent  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  to  Connaught  ; 
and,  remember,  he  gave  them  their  choice.  He  said,  "  Now,  if 
you  don't  like  to  go  to  Connaught,  I  will  send  you  to  hell ! " 
So  the  Catholic  Irish  put  their  heads  together,  and  they  said  : 
"  It  is  better  for  us  to  go  to  Connaught.  He  may  want  the 
other  place  for  himself."  God  forbid  that  I  should  condemn 
any  man  to  hell ;  but  I  cannot  help  thinking  of  what  the  poor 
carman  said  to  myself  in  Dublin  once.  Going  along,  he  saw  a 
likeness  of  Cromwell,  and  he  says,  "  At  all  events,  Cromwell  has 
gone  to  the  devil."  I  said,  "  My  man,  don't  be  uncharitable. 
Don't  say  that  ;  it  is  uncharitable  to  say  it."  "  Thunder  and 
turf!"  says  he,  "  sure  if  ke  is  not  gone  to  the  devil,  where  is  the 
use  of  having  a  devil  at  all  ?"  At  any  rate,  my  friends,  wherever 
he  is  gone  to,  he  confiscated  at  one  act  five  millions  of  acres  of 
Irish  land ;  with  one  stroke  of  his  pen,  he  handed  over  to  his 
Cromwellian  soldiers  five  million  acres  of  the  best  land  in  Ire- 
land, the  golden  vale  of  Tipperary  included.  Forty  years  later, 
the  Catholics  began  to  creep  out  of  Connaught,  and  to  buy  little 
lots  here  and  there,  and  they  got  a  few  lots  here  and  there  given 
to  them  by  their  Protestant  friends.  But,  at  any  rate,  it  was 
discovered  by  the  government  of  England,  that  the  Catholics  in 
Ireland  were  beginning  to  get  a  little  bit  of  the  land  again  ;  and 
they  issued  another  commission  to  inquire  into  the  titles  to 
these  properties,  and  they  found  that  there  was  a  million  two 
hundred  thousand  acres  of  the  land  recurred  to  the  Catholics ; 
and  they  found,  also,  that  that  land  belonged  to  the  crown ;  and 
the  million  two  hundred  thousand  acres  were  again  confiscated. 
So  that,  as  soon  as  the  people  began  to  take  hold  of  the  land 
at  all,  down  came  the  sword  of  persecution  and  of  confiscation 
upon  them.  And  Cromwell  himself  avowed  with  the  greatest  so- 
lemnity, that  as  Ireland  would  not  become  Protestant,  Ireland 
should  be  destroyed.  Now,  is  it  to  excite  your  feelings  of  hatred 
against  England  that  I  say  these  things  ?  No,  no  ;  I  don't  want  any 
man  to  hate  his  neighbor  I  don't  want  to  excite  these  feelings. 
Nor  I  don't  believe  it  is  necessary  for  me  to  excite  them.  I 
believe — sincerely  I  believe — that  an  effort  to  excite  an  Irish- 
man to  a  dislike  of  England,  would  be  something  like  an  effort 
to  encourage  a  cat  to  take  a  mouse.     I  mention  these  facts  just 


218  The  History  of  Ireland,  as 

because  these  are  the  things  that  Ireland's  ruins  tell  us ;  be- 
cause these  are  at  once  the  history  of  the  weakness  and  the 
sadness,  yet  of  the  strength  and  of  the  glory,  of  which  these 
ruins  tell  us.  I  mention  these  things  because  they  are  matter 
of  history  ;  and  because,  though  we  are  the  party  that  were  on 
the  ground,  prostrate,  there  is  nothing  in  the  history  of  oui 
fathers  at  which  the  Irishman  of  to-day  need  be  ashamed,  or 
hang  his  head.  But  if  you  want  to  know  in  what  spirit  oui 
people  dealt  with  all  this  persecution — if  you  want  to  know 
how  we  met  those  who  were  thus  terrible  in  their  persecution 
of  us — I  appeal  to  the  history  of  my  country,  and  I  will  state  to 
you  three  great  facts  that  will  show  you  what  was  the  glorious 
spirit  of  the  Irish  people,  even  in  the  midst  of  their  sorrows  ; 
how  Christian  it  was  and  how  patient  it  was ;  how  forgiving 
and  loving  even  to  our  persecutors  it  was ;  how  grandly  they 
illustrated  the  spirit  of  duty  at  the  command  of  their  Lord  and 
Saviour ;  and  how  magnificently  they  returned  good  for  evil. 
The  first  of  these  facts  is  this  :  At  the  time  that  England  in- 
vaded Ireland — towards  the  close  of  the  twelfth  century — 
there  were  a  number  of  Englishmen  in  slavery  in  Ireland. 
They  were  taken  prisoners  of  war ;  they  had  come  over  with 
the  Danes — from  Wales,  and  from  North  Britain,  with  their 
Danish  superiors ;  and  when  Ireland  conquered  them,  the  rude, 
terrible  custom  of  the  times,  and  the  shocks  that  all  peaceful 
spirit  had  got  by  these  wars,  had  bred  so  much  ferocity  in  the 
people,  that  they  actually  made  slaves  of  these  Englishmen ! 
And  they  were  everywhere  in  the  land.  When  the  English 
landed  in  Ireland,  and  when  the  first  Irish  blood  was  shed  by 
them,  the  nation  assembled  by  its  bishops  and  archbishops  in 
the  synod  at  Armagh,  there  said,  "  Perhaps  the  Almighty  God 
is  angry  with  us  because  we  have  these  captive  Christians  and 
Saxons  amongst  us,  and  punishes  us  for  having  these  slaves 
amongst  us.  In  the  name  of  God  we  will  set  them  free."  And 
on  that  day  every  soul  in  Ireland  that  was  in  slavery  received 
his  freedom.  Oh,  what  a  grand  and  glorious  sight  before 
heaven  !  a  nation  fit  to  be  free,  yet  enslaved — yet,  with  the  very 
hand  on  which  others  try  to  fasten  their  chains,  striking  off  the 
chains  from  these  English  slaves  !  Never  was  there  a  more 
glorious  illustration  of  the  heavenly  influence  of  Christianity 
since  Christianity   was  preached   amongst   the   nations.      The 


Told  in  Her  Ruins.  219 

next  incident  is  rather  a  ludicrous  one,  and  I  am  afraid  that  it 
will  make  you  laugh.  My  friends,  I  know  the  English  people 
well.  Some  of  the  best  friends  that  I  have  in  the  world  are  in 
England.  They  have  a  great  many  fine  qualities.  But  there  is 
a  secret,  quiet,  passive  contempt  for  Ireland  ;  and  I  really  be 
lieve  it  exists  amongst  the  very  best  of  them,  with  very  few  ex 
ceptions.  An  Englishman  will  not,  as  a  general  rule,  hate  an 
Irishman  joined  to  him  in  faith  ;  but  he  will  quietly  despise  us 
If  we  rise  and  become  fractious,  then,  perhaps,  he  will  fear  us 
but,  generally  speaking,  in  the  English  heart  there  is,  no  doubt 
a  contempt  for  Ireland  and  for  Irishmen.  Now,  that  showed 
itself  remarkably  in  1666.  In  that  year  the  Catholics  of  Ire- 
land were  ground  into  the  very  dust.  That  year  saw  one  hun- 
dred thousand  Irishmen — six  thousand  of  them  beautiful  boys 
— sent  off  to  be  sold  as  slaves  in  the  sugar-plantations  of  Bar- 
badoes.  That  year  London  was  burned,  just  as  Chicago  was 
burned  the  other  day.  The  people  were  left  in  misery.  The 
Catholics  of  Ireland — hunted,  persecuted,  scarcely  able  to  live 
— actually  came  together,  and,  out  of  pure  charity,  they  made 
up  for  the  famishing  people  of  London  a  present — a  grand  pre- 
sent. They  sent  them  over  fifteen  thousand  fat  bullocks ! 
They  knew  John  Bull's  taste  for  beef.  They  knew  his  liking 
for  a  good  beefsteak,  and  they  actually  sent  him  the  best  beef 
in  the  world — Irish  beef.  The  bullocks  arrived  in  London. 
The  people  took  them,  slaughtered  them,  and  ate  them — and 
the  Irish  Catholics  said,  "  Much  good  may  they  do  you  !"  Now 
comes  the  funny  part  of  it.  When  the  bullocks  were  all  killed 
and  eaten,  the  people  of  London  got  up  a  petition  to  the 
Houses  of  Parliament,  and  they  got  Parliament  to  act  on  that 
petition  ;  it  was  to  the  effect  that  this  importation  of  Irish  oxen 
was  a  nuisance  ;  and  it  should  be  abated.  But  they  had  taken 
good  care  to  eat  the  meat  before  they  voted  it  a  nuisance. 

The  third  great  instance  of  Ireland's  magnanimous  Christian- 
ity, and  of  the  magnanimity  with  which  this  brave  and  grand 
old  people  knew  how  to  return  good  for  evil,  was  in  the 
time  of  King  James.  In  the  year  1689,  exactly  twenty  years 
after  the  Irish  bullocks  had  been  voted  a  nuisance  in  London — 
in  that  year  there  happened  to  be,  for  a  short  time,  a  Catholic 
king  in  England.  The  tables  were  turned.  The  king  went  to 
work  and  he  turned  out  the  Irish  lord  chancellor  because  he 


22C  The  History  of  Ireland,  as 

was  a  Protestant,  and  he  put  in  a  Catholic  chancellor  in  his 
place.  He  turned  out  two  Irish  judges  because  they  were  Pro- 
testants, and  he  put  in  two  Englishmen,  Catholics,  as  judges  in 
their  place.  He  did  various  actions  of  this  kind,  persecuting 
men  because  they  were  Protestants  and  he  was  a  Catholic. 
And  now,  mark.  We  have  it  on  the  evidence  of  history  that 
the  Catholic  archbishop  of  Armagh  and  the  Catholic  pope  of 
Rome  wrote  to  James  the  Second,  through  the  lord  lieutenant 
over  the  Irish  Catholics  there,  that  he  had  no  right  to  do  that, 
and  that  it  was  very  wrong.  Oh,  what  a  contrast !  When 
Charles  the  First  wished  to  grant  some  little  remission  of  the 
persecution  in  Ireland,  because  he  was  in  want  of  money,  the 
Irish  Catholics  sent  him  word  that  they  would  give  him  two 
hundred  thousand  pounds  if  he  would  only  give  them  leave  to 
worship  God  as  their  own  consciences  directed.  What  encour- 
agement the  king  gave  them  we  know  not ;  at  any  rate,  they 
sent  him  a  sum  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  pounds,  by  way 
of  instalment.  But  the  moment  it  became  rumored  abroad,  the 
Protestant  archbishop  of  Dublin  got  up  in  the  pulpit  of  St. 
Patrick's  cathedral,  and  he  declared  that  a  curse  would  fall  upon 
the  land  and  upon  the  king,  because  of  these  anticipated  con- 
cessions to  the  Catholics.  What  a  contrast  is  here  presented 
between  the  action  of  the  Catholic  people  of  Ireland  and  the 
action  of  their  oppressors  !  And  in  these  instances  have  we  not 
presented  to  us  the  strongest  evidence  that  the  people  who  can 
act  so  by  their  enemies  were  incapable  of  being  crushed  ?  Yes  • 
Ireland  can  never  be  crushed  nor  conquered  ;  Ireland  can  never 
lose  her  nationality  so  long  as  she  retains  so  high  and  so  glorious 
a  faith,  and  presents  so  magnificent  an  illustration  of  it  in  her 
national  life.  Never'  She  has  not  lost  it  !  She  has  it  to-day. 
She  will  have  it  ir  the  higher  and  more  perfect  form  of  com- 
plete and  entire  national  freedom  ;  for  God  does  not  abandon  a 
race  who  not  only  cling  to  Him  with  an  unchanging  faith,  but 
who  also  know  how,  in  the  midst  of  their  sufferings,  to  illustrate 
that  faith  by  so  glorious,  so  liberal,  so  grand  a  spirit  of  Christian 
charity. 

And  now,  my  friends,  it  is  for  me  simply  to  draw  one  con- 
clusion, and  to  have  done.  Is  there  a  man  amongst  us  here  to- 
night who  is  ashamed  of  his  race  or  his  native  land,  if  that  man 
have  the  high  honor  to  be  an  Irishman?     Is  there  a  man  living 


Told  in  Her  Ruins.  221 

that  can  point  to  a  more  glorious  and  a  purer  source  whence  he 
draws  the  blood  in  his  veins,  than  the  man  who  can  point  to 
the  bravery  of  his  Irish  forefathers,  or  the  immaculate  purity  of 
his  Irish  mother!*  We  glory  in  them,  and  we  glory  in  the  faith 
for  which  our  ancestors  have  died.     We  glory  in  the  love  of 

^  country  that  never — never,  for  an  instant — admitted  that  Ireland 
was  a  mere  province — that  Ireland  was  merely  a  "  West  Britain." 
Never,  in  our  darkest  hour,  was  that  idea  adapted  to  the  Irish 
mind,  or  adopted  by  the  will  of  the  Irish  people.  And,  there- 
fore, I  say,  if  we  glory  in  that  faith — if  we  glory  in  the  history 
of  their  national  conduct  and  of  their  national  love,  oh,  my 
friends  and  fellow-countrymen — I  say  it,  as  well  as  a  priest  as 
an  Irishman — let  us  emulate  their  example  ;  let  us  learn  to  be 
generous  to  those  who  differ  from  us,  and  let  us  learn  to  be 
charitable,  even  to  those  who  would  fain  injure  us.  We  can 
thus  conquer  them.  We  can  thus  assure  to  the  future  of  Ire- 
land the  blessings  that  have  been  denied  to  her  past — the  bless- 
ing of  religious  equality,  the  blessing  of  religious  liberty,  the 
blessing  of  religious  unity,  which,  one  day  or  other,  will  spring 
up  in  Ireland  again.  I  have  often  heard  words  of  bitterness, 
aye,  and  of  insult,  addressed  to  myself  in  the  North  of  Ireland, 
coming  from  Orange  lips  ;  but  I  have  always  said  to  myself,  He 
is  an  Irishman  ;  though  he  is  an  Orangeman,  he  is  an  Irishman. 
If  he  lives  long  enough,  he  will  learn  to  love  the  priest  that  rep- 
resents Ireland's  old  faith  ;  but,  if  he  die  in  his  Orange  dis- 
positions, his  son  or  his  grandson  will  yet  shake  hands  with  and 
bless  the  priest,  when  he  and  I  are  both  in  our  graves.  And 
why  do  I  say  this?  Because  nothing  bad,  nothing  uncharitable, 
nothing  harsh  or  venomous  ever  yet  lasted  long  upon  the  green 
soil  of  Ireland.  If  you  throw  a  poisonous  snake  into  the  grass 
of  Ireland,  he  will  be  sweetened,  so  as  to  lose  his  poison,  or  else 
he  will  die.     Even  the  English  people,  when  they  landed,  were 

»  not  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  in  the  land,  until  they  were 
part  of  it ;  the  very  Normans  who  invaded  us  became  "  more 
Irish  than  the  Irish  themselves."  They  became  so  fond  of  the 
country,  that  they  were  thoroughly  imbued  with  its  spirit. 
And  so,  any  evil  that  we  have  in  Ireland,  is  only  a  tem- 
porary and  a  passing  evil,  if  we  are  only  faithful  to  our 
traditions,  and  to  the  history  of  our  country.  To-day. 
there   is   religious   disunion;    but,  thanks  be  to  God,  I   have 


222  The  History  of  Ireland,  as 

lived  to  see  religious,  disabilities  destroyed.     And,  if  I  were 
now  in  the  position  of  addressing  Irish  Orangemen,  I  would 
say,  "Men  of  Erin,  three  cheers  for  the  Church  disestablish- 
ment !  "     And  if  they  should  ask  me,  "  Why  ?  "  I  would  answer, 
"  It  was  right  and  proper  to  disestablish  the  Church,  because  the 
1  Established  Church '  was  put  in  between  you  and  me,  and  we 
ought  to  love  each  other,  for  we  are  both  Irish  !  "     Every  class 
in  Ireland  will  be  drawn  closer  to  the  other  by  this  disestablish- 
ment ;  and  the  honest   Protestant  man  will  begin  to  know  a 
little  more  of  his  Catholic  brother,  and  to  admire  him  ;  and  the 
Catholic  will  begin  to  know  a  little  more  of  the  Orangeman,  and, 
perhaps,  to  say,  "  After  all,  he  is  not  half  so  bad  as  he  appears." 
And  believe  me,  my  friends,  that,  breathing  the  air  of  Ireland, 
which  is  Catholic,  eating  the  bread  made  out  of  the  wheat  which 
grows  out  on  Irish  soil — they  get  so  infused  with  Catholic  blood, 
that  as  soon  as  the  Orangeman  begins  to  have  the  slightest  re- 
gard or  love  for  his  Catholic  fellow-countryman,  he  is  on  the 
highway  to  become  a  Catholic — for  a  Catholic  he  will  be,  some 
time  or  other.     As  a  man  said  to  me  very  emphatically  once  : 
u  They  will  all  be  Catholics  one  day,  surely,  sir,  if  they  only  stay 
Jong  enough  in  the  country !  "     I  say,  my  friends,  that  the  past 
is  the  best  guarantee  for  the  future.     We  have  seen  the  past  in 
/some  of  its  glories.     What  is  the  future  to  be  ?     What  is  the 
future  that  is  yet  to  dawn  on  this  dearly-loved  land  of  ours  ? 
Oh,  how  glorious  will  that  future  be,  when  all  Irishmen  shall  be 
united  in  one  common  faith  and  one  common  love  !     Oh,  how 
fair  will  our  beloved  Erin  be,  when,  clothed  in  religious  unity, 
religious  equality  and  freedom,  she  shall  rise  out  of  the  ocean 
wave,  as  fair,  as  lovely,  in  the  end  of  time,  as  she  was  in  the 
glorious  'days  when  the  world,  entranced  by  her  beauty,  pro- 
claimed her  to  be  the  mother  of  saints  and  sages.     Yes,  I  see 
her  rising  emancipated  ;  no  trace  of  blood  or  persecution  on  her 
virgin  face ;  the  crown,  so  long  lost  to  her,  resting  again  upon 
her  fair  brow !     I   see  her  in  peace  and  concord  with  all  the 
nations  around  her,  and  with  her  own  children  within  her.     I 
see  her  venerated  by  the  nations  afar  off,  and,  most  of  all,  by  the 
mighty  nation  which,  in  that  day,  in   its  strength,   and   in  its 
youth,  and  in  its  vigor,  shall  sway  the  destinies  of  the  world.    I 
see  her  as  Columbia  salutes  her  across  the  ocean  waves.     But 
the  light  of  freedom  coming  from  around  my  mother's  face  will 


Told  in  Her  Ruins.  223 

reflect  the  light  of  freedom  coming  from  the  face  of  that  nation 
which  has  been  nursed  in  freedom,  cradled  in  freedom,  and 
which  has  never  violated  the  sacred  principles  of  religious  free- 
dom and  religious  equality.  I  see  her  with  the  light  of  faith 
shining  upon  her  face  ;  and  I  see  her  revered,  beloved,  and 
cherished  by  the  nations,  as  an  ancient  and  a  most  precious 
thing !  I  behold  her  rising  in  the  energy  of  a  second  birth, 
when  nations  that  have  held  their  heads  high  are  humbled  in 
the  dust !  And  so  I  hail  thee,  O,  mother  Erin  !  and  I  say  to 
thee — 

"  The  nations  have  fallen,  but  thou  still  art  young  ; 
Thy  sun  is  but  rising  when  others  have  set ; 
And  though  slavery's  clouds  round  thy  morning  have  hung, 
The  full  noon  of  Freedom  shall  beam  round  thee  yet  I " 


THE   SUPERNATURAL  LIFE,  THE 

ABSORBING  LIFE  OF  THE 

IRISH  PEOPLE. 


[Delivered  in  the  Church  of  St.  Vincent  Ferrer,  New  York,  on  Friday,  April  26th,  1872.  | 

HE  occasion  of  my  addressing  you  this  evening  arises 
from  the  fact  that  many  who  were  kind  enough  to  take 
tickets  for  the  lecture  at  Cooper  Institute,  were  pre- 
vented  from   being  present,  by  the  great  crowds  of 


kind  sympathizing  friends  that  greeted  me  on  that  occasion. 
While,  therefore,  I  am  bound  in  justice  to  do  my  best  to 
meet  the  requirem.,;.^  of  those  who  were  kind  enough  to 
purchase  tickets  for  that  lecture,  I  also  wish  to  apologize  to 
you  for  any  inconvenience  that  you  may  have  suffered  on 
that  evening  from  having  been  excluded.  I  do  not  desire,  on 
this  occasion,  to  go  over  the  same  subject  or  the  same  ground 
as  on  the  evening  at  Cooper  Institute,  but  I  will  endeavor 
to  lead  you  into  the  inner  spirit  that  animated  the  great 
struggle  for  Ireland's  faith  and  for  Ireland's  nationality.  To 
those  amongst  you  who,  like  myself,  are  Irish,  the  subject  will 
be  pleasing  and  interesting  from  a  national  point  of  view.  To 
those  amongst  you  who  are  not  Irish,  the  subject  will  still  be  in- 
teresting, for  I  know  of  no  more  interesting  subject  to  occupy 
the  attention  of  any  honorable  or  high-minded  man,  than  the 
contemplation  of  a  people  in  a  noble  struggle  for  their  life,  both 
in  their  religion  and  in  their  national  existence. 

Now,  first  of  all,  my  dear  friends,  consider  that  there  are  two 
elements  in  every  man — two  elements  of  life — namely,  the 
natural  and  the  supernatural,  the  temporal  and  the  everlasting, 
the  corporeal  and  the  spiritual.     If  we  reflect  a  little  upon  the 


The  Supernatural  Life  of  the  Irish  People.  225 

nature  of  man,  we  shall  find  that  not  only  did  the  Almighty- 
God  endow  us  with  a  natural  life,  a  bodily  existence,  but  that, 
in  giving  to  us  the  spiritual  essence  of  the  soul  which  is  our 
interior  principle  of  life,  and  stamping  upon  that  soul  his  own 
divine  image  and  likeness,  as  he  tells  us,  it  was  the  intention  of 
the  Almighty  God  that  every  man  should  live  not  only  by  the 
real,  natural,  and  corporeal  life  of  the  body,  but  by  the  spiritual 
and  supernatural  life  of  the  soul.  The  body  has  its  require- 
ments, its  necessities,  its  dangers,  its  pleasures ;  and  so,  in  like 
manner,  the  soul  of  man  has  its  requirements,  its  necessities,  its 
dangers,  its  pleasures  ;  and  he  is  indeed  a  mean  specimen  of 
our  humanity  who  does  not  live  more  for  the  intellectual  and 
the  spiritual  objects  of  the  soul,  than  for  the  mere  transitory 
and  material  objects  of  the  body.  Yet,  between  the  material 
and  the  supernatural,  the  corporeal  and  the  spiritual,  there  is  a 
strict  analogy  and  resemblance.  In  the  body,  a  man  must  be 
born  in  order  to  begin  his  existence  in  this  world,  and  the  first 
necessary  element  of  life  is  that  birth,  which  is  the  beginning 
of  life.  Then,  when  the  little  infant  is  born  into  the  world,  he 
requires  daily  food  that  he  may  grow  and  wax  strong  every  day 
until  he  comes  from  childhood  to  youth  and  from  youth  to  the 
fullness  and  the  strength  of  his  manhood.  But  when  he  has  at- 
tained to  this  full  growth  and  strength,  still  does  he  require 
food  every  day  of  his  life  in  order  to  preserve  him  in  that 
health  and  strength  which  he  enjoys.  Yet  with  all  this  incipience 
of  being  and  birth,  with  all  this  sustenance  of  daily  food,  from  out 
the  very  nature  of  the  body,  from  out  a  thousand  causes  that 
surround  him,  every  man  of  us  must  at  some  time  or  other  feel 
bodily  disease  and  infirmity.  Then  the  remedy — the  cure — is 
necessary,  in  order  to  restore  us  to  our  health  and  vigor  once  more. 
Behold  the  three  great  necessities  of  the  bodily  or  corporeal 
life  in  man.  To  begin  to  exist,  he  must  be  born.  To  continue 
his  existence,  in  the  full  maintenance  of  his  health  and  strength, 
he  must  be  fed  ;  and  to  restore  him,  whenever,  by  disease  or 
infirmity,  he  falls  away  from  the  fullness  of  that  existence,  he 
must  apply  proper  remedies.  As  it  is  with  the  body,  so  it  is 
with  the  spirit.  As  it  is  in  the  order  of  nature,  so  it  is  in  the 
order  of  grace.  The  soul  also  must  be  born  into  its  super- 
natural life.  The  soul  must  be  strengthened  by  supernatural 
food  in  order  to   maintain  its  celestial  strength  in  that  super- 

»5 


226  The  Supernatural  Life 

natural  life.  The  soul,  whenever  it  fails,  or  falls  away  from  that 
strength  and  that  supernatural  existence,  must  be  provided  with 
remedies,  in  order  that  it  may  return  once  more  to  the  fullness 
of  its  supernatural  manhood.  And  this  is  precisely  the  point 
where  the  world  fails  to  comprehend,  I  will  not  say  the  gifts  of 
God,  but  even  the  wants  of  man.  If  there  be  one  evil  greater 
than  all  others  in  this  nineteenth  century  of  ours,  it  is  that 
men  content  themselves  with  that  which  is  merely  natural. 
They  seek  all  that  is  required  for  the  strength  and  the  enjoy- 
ment of  the  natural  life,  and  they  do  not  rise,  and  they  refuse — 
deliberately  refuse — to  rise,  even  in  thought,  even  in  concep- 
tion, to  the  idea  of  the  supernatural  life,  and  the  supernatural 
requirements  of  man.  The  absence  of  the  supernatural  idea, 
the  absence  of  the  supernatural  craving  or  appetite,  the  con- 
tentment with  being  deprived  of  the  supernatural  element,  is 
the  great  evil  of  our  day ;  and  I  lay  that  evil  solemnly,  as  a 
historian  as  well  as  a  priest,  at  the  door  of  Protestantism.  Not 
only  did  Protestantism  assail  this,  that,  or  the  other  specific 
doctrine  of  the  Church  of  God,  but  Protestantism  killed  and 
destroyed  the  supernatural  life  in  man.  In  order  to  see  this, 
all  you  have  to  do  is  to  reflect  what  are  the  three  elements  of 
the  supernatural  life.  What  do  I  mean  when  I  speak  of  the 
supernatural  element  of  life  ?  I  mean  this :  that  we  are  obliged 
to  live  not  only  for  time,  but  for  eternity ;  not  only  for  this 
world,  but  for  the  world  that  is  to  come ;  not  only  for  our  fel- 
low-men, but,  above  all,  for  our  God,  who  made  us.  Know  that 
no  man  can  live  for  God  unless  he  lives  in  God.  Let  me  repeat 
this  great  truth  again :  No  man  can  live  for  God  unless  he  lives 
in  God  ;  and  in  order  to  live  in  God,  he  must  be  born  unto  God. 
He  must  begin  to  live  in  God,  if  he  is  to  live  in  him  at  all — just 
as  a  man  must  be  born  into  this  world  naturally,  if  he  is  to  live 
in  this  world.  If,  then,  God  in  his  wisdom,  in  his  mercy,  in  his 
grace,  in  his  divine  and  eternal  purposes,  be  the  supernatural 
life  of  man,  it  follows  that  the  supernatural  birth  of  the  soul  lies 
in  its  being  incorporated  in  Jesus  Christ,  engrafted  upon  him — 
as  St.  Paul  says,  let  into  him — and  he  makes  this  comparison  : 
When  the  gardener  has  a  wild  olive-tree — stunted,  crooked,  sap- 
less— bearing,  perhaps,  a  few  wild  berries,  without  oil  or  without 
sap  in  them — what  does  he  do  ?  He  cuts  off  a  branch  of  the 
wild  olive-tree,  and  he  engrafts  it  into  the  bark  and  into  the 


of  the  Irish  People.  227 

body— -the  trunk — of  a  fully-matured  olive,  of  a  fruitful  tree,  and 
then  the  sap  of  the  fruitful  tree  passes  i"fo  the  wild  and  hereto- 
fore fruitless  branch,  and  it  brings  forth  the  fullness  of  its  fruit, 
because  of  the  better  life  and  sap  that  was  let  into  it.  So,  ob- 
served St.  Paul,  the  Apostle,  we,  as  children  of  nature,  and  in  a 
merely  natural  life,  are  born  of  a  wild  olive-tree — the  sinful  man  ; 
but  Christ,  our  Lord,  the  man  from  heaven,  came  down  teem- 
ing and  overflowing  with  the  graces  of  God,  with  the  sanctity  of 
God,  and  then,  taking  us  from  the  natural  stem,  he  engrafted  us 
upon  himself,  the  true  olive-tree  ;  and  thus  we  are  let  into 
Jesus  Christ,  until  that  grace,  which  is  the  essence  of  the  divine 
nature  of  God  in  all  perfection,  is  participated  unto  us ;  where- 
fore, St.  Peter  does  not  hesitate  to  call  grace  a  kind  of  participa- 
tion of  the  divine  nature.  Thus,  my  dear  friends,  this  engrafting 
upon  Christ  is  the  spiritual  and  supernatural  birth  and  beginning 
of  that  supernatural  life  that  is  in  man.  How  is  this  effected? 
I  answer :  By  the  sacrament  of  baptism  ;  and  here,  upon  the 
very  threshold  of  supernatural  life,  I  find,  to  my  horror  and  to 
my  astonishment,  that  one  of  the  first  fruits  of  Protestantism  is 
the  denial  of  baptismal  regeneration,  the  denial  of  baptismal  grace, 
and  the  practical  refusal  to  administer  the  sacrament.  It  was  not 
so  in  the  first  days  of  Protestantism  ;  it  was  not  so  for  many  a 
long  year.  The  necessity  of  a  supernatural  and  a  spiritual  birth 
was  recognized  even  when  other  things  were  denied  ;  but  to-day 
it  has  come  to  this,  that  the  genius  and  the  spirit  of  popular  Pro- 
testantism is  opposed  to  the  idea  of  baptismal  regeneration.  It 
goes  now  by  the  name  of  figment  of  baptismal  regeneration. 
They  scoff  at  it,  and  it  is  only  a  few  years  since  that  a  Protest- 
ant clergyman  in  England  refused  to  baptize  the  children  who 
were  born  in  his  parish,  and  grounded  his  refusal  upon  an  avowal 
that  he  did  not  believe  in  the  necessity  of  baptism,  or  that  it 
brought  any  good  or  grace  to  the  young  soul.  At  first  the  Pro- 
testant world  was  alarmed.  The  Protestant  Bishop  of  Exeter 
suspended  this  clergyman.  The  clergyman  appealed  to  the 
head  of  the  Protestant  Church  of  England — namely,  to  Queen 
Victoria  and  her  council  :  the  Queen,  good  woman,  didn't  mind 
him  at  all :  she  knew  nothing  about  the  matter.  She  had  her 
family  and  her  children  to  look  after,  and  her  husband  was  alive 
at  the  time:  she  didn't  mind  him  at  all ;  she  took  no  notice  of 
him,  but  the  council  did ;  and  they  came  together,  these  men  - 


228  The  Supernatural  Life 

they  might  have  been  Jews,  they  might  have  been  infidels,  they 
might  have  been  anything  you  like  ;  and  when  I  say  this  I  do 
not  mean  the  slightest  disrespect  to  the  Jews  or  infidels  ;  but  I 
simply  say  they  might  have  been  men  who  did  not  believe  at 
all  in  Christianity  nor  in  Christ.  They  came  together,  and  they 
decreed  that  baptismal  regeneration,  or  the  spiritual  birth  in 
Christ,  was  no  part  of  Protestant  teaching.  Consequently,  the 
Bishop  got  an  order  from  the  council  to  remove  his  suspension, 
and  the  clergyman  triumphed.  There  was  a  solemn  act,  a  dec- 
laration of  faith  on  the  part  of  what  they  call  the  Head  of  the 
Church,  and  a  submission  on  the  part  of  the  Church  itself  to  the 
principle  that  Protestantism,  as  such,  as  a  religion,  refused  to 
acknowledge  even  the  very  beginning  of  the  supernatural  life, 
which  is  baptism.  But  when  a  man  is  baptized  into  Christ,  an^ 
begins  to  live  the  supernatural  life,  the  next  thing  that  is  neces- 
sary for  him,  just  as  in  the  natural  life,  is  to  receive  his  food. 
What  food  has  God  prepared  for  him  ?  He  has  prepared  a  two- 
fold kind  of  food ;  the  teaching  of  His  truth,  upon  which  tho 
intelligence  of  the  child  is  to  be  fed,  and  His  own  divine  pres- 
ence, in  the  sacrament  of  the  Eucharist,  which  is  the  food  or 
the  Christian  soul  in  its  supernatural  life,  necessary  for  that  life 
and  without  which  man  can  have  no  life  in  him.  "  Unless  you 
eat  of  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  Man,"  says  Christ,  "  and  drink  of 
His  blood,  you  shall  not  have  life  in  you."  Here  again  Protest- 
antism is  the  destruction  of  the  supernatural  life,  in  its  denial  o« 
Christ's  presence  in  the  Blessed  Sacrament.  But  even  with  this 
sacramental  food,  high  and  holy  as  it  is,  great  and  infinite  in  its 
power  and  strength — such  is  the  atmosphere  in  which  we  live, 
such  te  the  corruption  in  the  midst  of  which  our  lot  is  cast,  so 
numerous  are  the  scandals  and  the  bad  examples  around  us,  that 
there  is  still  danger  that  the  Christian  man  in  his  supernatural 
life  may  fail,  and  fall  away  some  what,  and  perhaps  even  entirely, 
from  that  principle  of  divine  grace,  and  from  Jesus  Christ  who 
is  the  life  of  us  all.  This  failing,  this  falling  away,  is  accom- 
plished by  sin.  Sin  is  the  evil,  sin  is  the  infirmity,  sin  is  the 
disease,  the  fever  of  the  soul,  and  therefore  it  was  necessary  for 
the  Son  of  God,  when  He  made  Himself  the  supernatural  life 
of  our  souls,  not  only  to  give  us  a  beginning  of  life  in  baptism. 
not  only  to  give  us  the  food  and  strength  of  that  life  in  Holy 
Communion,  but  also  to  provide  a  remedy  for  taking  away  sin, 


of  the  Trish  People.  229 

and  restoring  the  soul  to  its  first  strength  and  purity  again. 
This  He  did  in  the  day  when,  instituting  the  Sacrament  of  Pen 
ance,  He  gave  to  His  Apostles  the  power  to  lift  up  omnipotent 
nands  over  the  sinner's  head,  and  apply  to  him  the  graces  of 
Jesus  Christ  through  sacramental  absolution,  and  in  that  appli- 
cation of  grace,  to  wipe  away  his  sins.  Once  more  do  I  en- 
counter in  Protestantism  the  ruin  of  man's  spiritual  life,  in  its 
denial  of  the  mercy  of  God,  which  reaches  the  soul  in  the  Sac- 
rament of  Penance. 

Now,  my  friends,  in  these  three  consist  the  supernatural  life, 
and  you  see  how  analogous,  or  how  like  it  is  to  the  natural  life. 
I  was  born  into  this  world,  I  was  born  unto  God  by  baptism,  I 
was  fed  in  my  infancy,  in  my  youth,  in  my  manhood  ;  I  am  fed 
with  the  supernatural  life  at  the  altar.  I  have  been  lifted  up 
from  the  bed  of  sickness,  from  the  impotency  and  weakness  of 
disease,  and  the  racking  pain  of  fever,  by  the  powerful  and  the 
skillful  hand  of  a  physician  who  knew  how  to  purge  and  cleanse 
my  bodily  frame  from  the  elements  of  that  disease.  I  have  been 
lifted  up  from  the  bed  of  sin  by  the  wise,  and  skillful,  and  absolv- 
ing hand  of  God's  grace. 

Let  us  go  one  step  further.  If  a  man,  born  into  the  world, 
an  infant,  a  chiW,  is  denied  his  food,  if  in  his  sickness  he  is 
denied  the  help  of  a  physician  or  the  remedies  which  are  neces- 
sary for  him,  what  follows  ?  It  follows  that  he  dies.  And  so, 
in  like  manner,  my  Catholic  friends,  baptism  alone  will  not  save 
us ;  baptism  alone  will  not  preserve  in  us  the  life  which  it  has 
begun  in  us.  We  must  keep  that  life  by  Holy  Communion  ;  we 
must  restore  that  life,  repair  its  losses,  in  the  Sacrament  of  Pen- 
ance, or  else  we  inevitably  die.  Oh  !  if  I  could  only  drive  this 
thought  into  the  minds  and  into  the  hearts  of  those  Catholic 
brethren  of  mine  who  seem  to  think  that  a  man  can  live  with- 
out confession  or  communion.  You  might  as  well,  my  friends, 
expect  to  live  without  tasting  food ;  you  would  be  dead  after 
three  or  four  days;  and  so  I  say  to  you,  the  man  who  neglects 
confession  and  communion  must  die. 

Again,  not  only  is  the  spiritual  life  of  man  analogous  to  the 
natural — not  only  is  it  like  the  natural — but  it  acts  upon  the  natu- 
ral. The  supernatural  life  in  man  acts  upon  him,  upon  his  daily 
actions,  upon  his  natural  desires  and  tendencies,  shapes  and 
influences  his  life,  and  preserves  him  in  the  integrity  of  his  being 


230  The  Supernatural  Life 

--for  mark  what  I  tell  you,  that  man  only  lives  half  a  life, 
and  that  the  least  half,  who  lives  exclusively  by  the  natural 
life,  and  neglects  the  supernatural.  The  integrity  of  man's  life 
embraces  both,  and  begins  with  the  supernatural  ;  and  that 
supernatural  agency  at  work  within  him — that  union  with  God 
that  life  in  God,  by  divine  grace  acts  upon  his  natural  life 
Hence  the  difference  between  a  good  and  a  bad  man.  You  take 
these  two :  one  of  them  believes,  the  other  does  not  believe. 
One  bows  down  his  head  with  adoration  and  love  at  the  name 
of  Jesus  Christ,  the  other  scoffs  and  laughs  when  he  hears  that 
name,  and  blasphemes.  One  restrains  his  passions  and  his  natu- 
ral inclinations,  keeping  them  within  strict  virtue  and  purity,  the 
other  lets  them  out  and  lets  his  soul  go  out  like  water  from 
him  ;  lets  his  heart  become  liquefied  within  him  under  the  heat- 
ing influence  of  every  evil  passion,  and  flow  from  him  in  every 
form  of  impurity  and  sin.  How  unlike  are  the  proud,  yet  base- 
minded,  dishonest,  impure,  luxurious  men  of  the  world,  and  the 
prayerful,  pure-minded  father  of  a  family  in  the  Catholic  Church, 
faithful  to  his  paternal  obligations,  faithful  to  the  wife  of  his 
bosom,  faithful  as  the  guardian  and  educator  of  his  children, 
living  for  his  Church,  and  for  prayer,  and  for  the  sacraments, 
and  living  for  them  and  for  his  family,  and  for  his  children,  far 
more  than  for  himself.  Take  him  and  put  him  side  by  side  with 
this  man  with  whom  we  are  all  so  familiar  in  this  day  of  ours, 
the  loose-living,  licentious  debauchee — the  man  who  lives  as  if 
he  were  not  a  married  man  at  all,  neglects  his  wife,  goes  in  the 
pursuit  of  every  pleasure,  comes  home  jaded,  disgusted,  sur- 
feited with  sin,  until  every  highest  and  holiest  purpose  of  life  is 
forgotten  or  only  affords  him  disgust.  Home  has  no  charms  for 
him.  The  pure-minded  wom&n,  the  modest  woman,  that  gave 
him  her  heart  and  her  love,  is  despised  by  him,  until  at  last  he 
puzzles  his  brain  to  try  to  break  loose  from  his  obligations  as  a 
husband  and  a  father.  Whence  this  difference  between  the  two 
men?  The  difference  arises  from  the  fact  that  the  supernatural 
life  acts  upon  the  man  who  is  united  with  God,  shapes  his  life, 
restrains  his  passions,  purifies  his  nature,  directs  his  intentions, 
shapes  and  forms  all  his  actions ;  and  thus  we  see  that  the  super, 
natural  life  acts  upon  the  natural,  and  is,  as  it  were,  the  soul  of 
a  man's  true  existence. 

One  thought  more,  my  friends.     What  is  a  nation,  a  people 


of  the  Irish  People.  231 

a  State?  Why,  it  is  nothing  more  than  a  collection  of  individuals. 
The  man  good  or  bad,  the  man  faithful  or  unfaithful,  the  man 
pure  or  impure,  is  multiplied  by  three  or  four  millions,  or  ten 
millions,  or  twenty  millions,  and  there  you  have  a  nation. 
Therefore  you  see  clearly,  that  whatever  the  man — the  average 
man — is,  that  the  nation  will  be  ;  that  if  the  average  man  leads 
a  supernatural  as  well  as  a  natural  life,  then  there  will  be  a  super- 
natural national  life,  as  well  as  a  natural  life.  Then  the  nation 
will  live  for  something  higher  and  better  and  holier  and  more 
lasting  than  this  world  ;  for  the  nation  is  only  the  man  multi- 
plied. And  here  again  is  one  of  the  mistakes  of  this  nineteenth 
century  of  ours,  in  our  unreasoning  and  unthinking  minds.  We 
separate  these  two  ideas,  and  we  look  upon  a  nation  or  a  people 
as  something  distinct  from  the  individuals  who  compose  it.  It 
is  not  so.  Men  are  not  surprised  to  find  a  nation  doing  an  un- 
just act,  declaring  an  unjust  war,  seizing  upon  their  neighbor'.-; 
property,  depriving  some  neighboring  people  of  their  liberties 
and  their  rights.  Why,  what  is  it  ?  It  is  a  national  act,  but  it 
brings  a  personal  responsibility  home  to  every  man,  and  the  na- 
tion that  does  this  is  simply  a  multitude  of  robbers,  a  multitude 
of  unjust  men,  and  the  Almighty  God  will  judge  that  national 
sin  by  bringing  it  home  to  every  man  that  took  a  part  in  it  or 
who  refused  to  offer  his  heart  and  hand  in  manful  resistance. 
When,  therefore,  we  consider  a  nation  and  a  nation's  life,  we  have 
a  right  to  look  for  the  supernatural  as  well  as  the  natural,  and 
if  the  supernatural  be  in  the  individual  it  will  be  in  the  nation. 
Nay,  more,  just  as  the  supernatural  life  acts  upon  the  natural  in 
the  individual  man,  so  also  in  the  life  of  a  nation  the  super- 
natural will  act  upon  the  natural  action  of  the  nation — will  shape 
their  policy,  will  animate  their  desires,  will  give  a  purpose  to 
their  grand  national  action,  will  create  public  opinion,  public 
sympathy  and  antipathy  ;  and  we  may  explain  the  life  of  a  na- 
tion by  the  supernatural.  And,  as  we  have  seen,  that  where  in 
the  individual  man  there  is  the  supernatural  life  in  God,  and  for 
God,  and  with  God,  there  that  supernatural  life  preserves  the 
integrity  of  the  man's  whole  being,  preserves  him  in  purity,  pre- 
serves him  in  health  and  in  the  integrity  of  his  body ;  so,  also, 
in  the  nation,  the  supernatural  life  of  a  people  preserves  the 
honor,  the  integrity,  the  strength,  purity,  and  vigor  of  their 
natural  and  national  life. 


2$2  The  Supernatural  Life 

Now,  you  may  well  ask  me,  what  does  all  this  tend  to,  what 
are  you  driving  at  ?  Simply  this,  my  friends  :  I  told  you  that  I 
invited  you  to  enter  with  me  into  the  inner  soul  of  the  Irish 
people.  I  want  to  explain  to  you  one  great  fact,  and  it  is  this  : 
How  comes  it  to  pass  that  a  nation,  the  most  oppressed  of  all 
the  nations  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  not  for  a  day,  nor  for  a 
year,  but  for  centuries  ;  a  nation  deprived  of  its  rights,  its  con- 
stitutional rights  habitually  suspended ;  a  nation  in  which  the 
immense  body  of  the  people  had  no  rights  at  all,  recognized  nor 
enforced  by  law  ;  a  nation  trampled  under  foot,  trampled  down 
into  the  blood-stained  earth  by  successive  wave  after  wave  of 
invasion,  and  by  ruthless  and  remorseless  persecution — how 
comes  it  to  pass  that  this  people  has  preserved  the  principle  of 
its  national  existence  ;  that  it  never  consented  to  merge  its 
name,  its  history,  its  national  individuality,  into  that  of  a  neigh- 
boring and  a  powerful  nation  ?  All  that  England  has  been  doing 
for  centuries,  sometimes  animated,  perhaps,  with  a  good  inten- 
tion, very  often  with  a  bad  one,  has  been  to  try  to  so  mix  up 
Ireland  and  England  together  that  the  Irish  would  lose  sight  of 
their  past  national  history,  that  they  would  lose  sight  of  the 
great  fact  that  they  are  a  distinct  nationality,  humble,  subject, 
obedient  to  law,  bowing  down  under  the  yoke  that  was  imposed 
upon  them  in  spite  of  them — a  conquered  nation,  but  a  nation 
still,  and  unto  the  end  of  time.  How  has  this  come  to  pass? 
Now,  if  you  will  reflect  upon  it,  you  will  find  that  it  is  a  mys- 
tery. You  will  find,  my  friends,  if  you  carefully  read  the  history 
of  nations,  that  whenever  one  nation  has  succeeded  in  conquer- 
ing another,  provided  that  other  lay  upon  their  frontier,  that, 
after  the  lapse  of  ages,  the  conquering  nation  has  succeeded  in 
absorbing  the  very  national  existence  of  the  race  that  it  con- 
quered. Thus,  for  instance,  we  see  how  completely  Rome  suc- 
ceeded in  absorbing  and  amalgamating  all  the  neighboring  petty 
kingdoms  of  Italy.  She  infused  them  into  herself,  so  that  ah 
became  one  Roman  empire.  It  was  nothing  but  Rome.  It  was 
never  called  the  empire  of  Rome  and  Tuscany,  or  the  empire  of 
Rome  and  Naples,  or  the  empire  of  Rome  and  Gaul — never ; 
but  the  empire  of  Rome.  England  has  never  been  able  to  call 
the  two  islands  by  one  name.  It  is  Great  Britain  and  Ireland, 
and  it  will  be  so  to  the  end.  Nay,  more ;  we  have  there  at  our 
very  door  in  that  green  old  cluster  of  islands  that  rise  out  of  the 


of  the  Irish  People.  233 

eastern  Atlantic — we  have  a  kingdom,  not  quite  so  ancient  as  Ire- 
land, but  a  kingdom  that  lasted  for  centuries  after  Ireland's  na- 
tionality seemed  to  be  destroyed — namely,  the  kingdom  of  Scot- 
land. They  were  the  same  race — they  were  Celts,  as  we  were — the 
same  origin.  In  the  remoter  ages  Scotland  derived  its  inhabi- 
tants from  the  Celtic  race.  The  same  language,  almost ;  I  have 
conversed  with  Highlanders,  and  almost  understood  every  word 
of  their  language,  it  is  so  like  my  own  native  tongue.  They 
preserved  their  line  of  kings,  they  preserved  their  magnificent 
nationality,  splendid  in  its  history,  splendid  in  its  virtues ;  they 
had  saints  in  their  line  of  kings — that  glorious  line  of  Scottish 
monarchs  crowned  in  Holyrood,  the  ancient  palace  of  the  land, 
by  the  heroic  chieftains  that  stood  around  them.  Strong  as  she 
was  once  in  her  language,  strong  in  her  position,  strong  in  her 
religion  and  in  her  ideas  of  nationality,  what  is  Scotland  to- 
day? A  mere  destroyed  nation — a  province  of  Great  Britain. 
Every  tradition  of  Scottish  nationality  seems  to  have  perished 
as  a  distinct  nation  ;  and  the  only  thing  that  a  Scotchman  of 
to-day  sees  to  remind  him  of  the  olden  time  is  the  crumbling 
walls  where  once  the  monarch  of  the  Scottish  race  sat  en- 
throned. How  can  you  explain  this  ?  Scotland  never  was 
subjected  to  the  same  miseries  that  have  been  the  fate  of  Ire- 
land. I  am  only  speaking  history,  and  I  am  speaking  that 
history  without  the  slightest  passion.  I  am  only  analyzing  and 
trying  to  explain  a  great  fact.  I  am  speaking  history  without 
the  slightest  disrespect  for  one  people  or  another.  If  you  were 
all  Englishmen,  or  all  Scotchmen,  I  should  still  be  obliged,  as  a 
truth-telling  and  a  historical  man,  to  state  the  facts  as  I  am 
stating  them.  How  can  we  explain  these  phenomena?  I 
answer :  The  true  explanation  lies  here,  that  the  supernatural 
life  became  so  much  the  absorbing  life  of  the  Irish  people  that 
it  acted  upon  their  natural  life  and  preserved  the  principle  of 
their  nationality.  Ireland  was  born  unto  Christ  fourteen  hun- 
dred years  ago.  The  film  of  Paganism  fell  from  her  eyes,  and 
lifting  up  those  eyes  in  the  eagerness  of  her  contemplation,  she 
beheld  the  transcendent  beauty  of  Jesus  Christ.  She  opened  her 
arms — this  nation — and  called  Him  to  her  bosom,  and  she  has 
never  parted  with  Him  from  that  day  to  this.  He  has  been  her 
life,  generation  after  generation,  and  all  her  children  have  been 
bom  individually  unto  him  by  baptism,  and  so,  for  more  than 


234  The  Supernatural  Life 

one  thousand  years,  she  lived,  until  three  hundred  years  ago 
she  was  called  upon  to  give  up  her  life.  England  had  already 
died.  Protestantism  arose  three  hundred  years  ago.  It  be- 
came the  national  religion  of  the  English  people  ;  and  the  first 
principle  of  Protestantism  was  to  deny  the  Eucharistic  food, 
which  is  the  principle  of  supernatural  life  and  strength,  and 
the  Sacramental  grace,  which  is  the  only  food  of  the  soul. 
Now,  if  we  take  a  man,  and  shut  him  up  in  a  room,  and  refuse 
lv!m  his  food,  he  will  starve  and  die.  If  you  take  a  man 
stricken  down  with  fever,  or  with  cholera,  or  with  some  terrible 
disease,  and  refuse  him  medical  assistance,  the  man  must  die. 
The  first  principle  of  Protestantism  was  to  deprive  men  and 
nations  of  the  food  and  the  medicine  of  the  supernatural  life  ; 
and  when  the  question  was  solemnly  put  to  Ireland  and  to 
Scotland,  "  Will  you  consent  to  die  ?"  Scotland  gave  up  her 
Catholic  faith,  and  died.  Ireland  clung  to  that  faith,  laid  hold 
of  that  religion  with  a  grasp  firm,  decided,  and  terrible  in  its 
clutch,  and  refused  to  die.  Scotland  gave  up  the  supernatural 
in  order  to  preserve  the  natural.  Ireland  sacrificed  the  natural, 
her  property,  prosperity,  wealth,  let  everything  go  for  that  faith 
which  she  had  maintained  for  one  thousand  years.  And  I  as- 
sert that  there,  in  that  supernatural  life,  in  that  supernatural 
principle,  lies  the  whole  secret  of  Ireland's  nationality. 

Take  an  average  Irishman — I  don't  care  where  you  find  him- 
and  you  will  find  that  the  very  first  principle  in  his  mind  is,  "  1 
am  not  an  Englishman,  because  I  am  a  Catholic."  Take  an 
Irishman  wherever  he  is  found,  all  over  the  earth,  and  any 
casual  observer  will  at  once  come  to  the  conclusion,  "Oh;  he 
is  an  Irishman,  he  is  a  Catholic!"  The  two  go  together.  But 
you  may  ask  me,  "  Wouldn't  it  be  better  for  Ireland  to  be  as 
Scotland  is — a  prosperous  and  a  contented  province — rather  than 
a  distressed  and  a  discontented  nationality?"  Which  of  these 
two  would  you  have  the  old  land  to  be,  my  Irish  fellow-coun- 
trymen ?  To  which  of  these  two  would  you  prefer  to  belong  ? 
to  Ireland  as  a  prosperous  and  a  contented  province,  forgetful 
of  her  glorious  national  history,  deprived  of  her  religion,  no 
light  upon  her  altars,  no  God  in  the  sanctuary,  no  sacramental 
hand  to  be  lifted  over  the  sinner's  head — Ireland  banishing  the 
name  of  Mary — Ireland  canny  and  cunning,  fruitful  and  rich, 
but  having  forsaken  her  God — Ireland  blaspheming  Patrick's 


of  the  Irish  People.  235 

name,  Patrick's  religion — turning  away  from  her  graves  and 
saying:  "There  is  no  hope  anymore — no  hope,  no  prayer;" 
but  rich— canny,  cunning,  and  commonplace.  Can  you  im- 
agine this  ?  Oh  no !  The  Irishman,  wherever  he  is,  all  the 
world  over,  the  moment  he  sees  the  altar  of  a  Catholic  church, 
savs : 

"  Cold  in  the  earth  at  thy  feet  I  would  rather  be, 
Than  wed  what  I  love  not,  or  turn  one  thought  from  thee." 

Ireland  a  province  !  No ;  rather  be  the  child  of  a  nation,  rather 
be  the  son  of  a  nation,  even  though  upon  my  mother's  brows  I 
see  a  crown  of  thorns  and  on  her  hands  the  time-worn  chains 
of  slavery.  Yet  upon  that  mother's  face  I  see  the  light  of  faith, 
of  purity,  and  of  God ;  and  far  dearer  to  me  is  my  mother  Ire- 
land, a  nation  in  her  sorrow  to-day,  than  if  I  beheld  her  rich, 
and  commonplace,  and  vulgar,  and  impure,  and  forgetful  of 
herself  and  of  God. 

Again,  a  nation  does  not  exist  for  a  day,  nor  for  a  year,  nor 
for  a  century.  A  nation's  life  is  like  the  life  of  the  Almighty 
God.  A  nation's  history  is  in  the  past,  and  her  life  is  in  the  far 
distant  future.  When  that  future  comes — and  it  is  coming  in 
the  order  of  things,  in  the  order  of  nature — it  will  not  bring 
ruin  to  Ireland.  I  don't  profess  to  say  that  I  desire  it  very 
ardently  ;  I  am  a  loyal  subject ;  I  don't  wish  to  speak  treason, 
even  though  I  might  here  in  this  land  ;  I  do  not  wish  to  say 
a  single  word  that  might  on  my  return  to  Ireland  be  put  before 
me  as  treason ;  but  I  say  that,  in  the  ordinary  course  of  things, 
nations  as  great  as  England  is  and  has  been  have  been  broken  up 
in  the  course  of  time,  and  I  suppose  that  the  most  ardent  and 
patriotic  Englishman  in  the  world  does  not  expect  his  British  Em- 
pire to  last  forever.  Greece  did  not  last  forever.  Assyria, 
Rome,  Carthage  did  not  last.  A  very  loyal  Englishman  indeed, 
speaking  of  the  Catholic  Church,  said  :  "  The  Church  of  Rome 
saw  the  commencement  of  all  the  governments  and  of  all  the 
ecclesiastical  establishments  that  now  exist  in  the  world  ;  and 
we  feel  no  assurance  that  she  is  not  destined  to  see  the  end  of 
them  all.  She  was  great  and  respected  before  the  Saxon  had 
set  foot  on  Britain,  before  the  Frank  had  passed  the  Rhine, 
when  Grecian  eloquence  still  flourished  in  Antioch,  when  idols 
were  still  worshipped  in  the  temple  of  Mecca.  And  she  may 
still  exist  in  undiminished  vigor  when  some  traveller  from  New 


236  The  Supernatural  Life 

Zealand  shall,  in  the  midst  of  a  vast  solitude,  take  his  stand  in  a 
broken  arch  of  London  Bridge  to  sketch  the  ruins  of  St.  Paul." 
Now,  I  say  that  when  that  disruption  comes,  Scotland  wrecks  and 
goes  down ;  but  out  of  that  very  ruin,  that  will  shake  to  pieces 
this  great  Empire  of  Britain,  Ireland,  in  virtue  of  her  nationality 
and  religion  will  rise  into  the  grandeur  and  fullness  of  the  strength 
and  glory  of  that  future  which  she  has  secured  to  herself  by  being 
faithful  in  the  past.  To-day  she  is  in  the  dust ;  she  has  been 
in  the  dust  for  ages;  but  I  ask  you  to  look  into  history,  study 
the  past.  When  Holofernes  came  down  upon  Judea,  and  sum- 
moned the  Jewish  people,  if  they  wished  to  preserve  their  lives 
and  fortunes,  to  submit,  be  a  province  of  the  Assyrian  Empire, 
to  give  up  their  religion  and  kneel  at  strange  altars,  if  Judea  in 
that  day  had  consented,  if  she  had  said,  "  Well,  we  believed 
that  we  were  the  people  of  God  ;  now  oppression  has  come  upon 
us,  and  we  must  yield  ;"  if  Judea  foreswore  her  ancient  faith,  if 
she  consented  to  forsake  her  ancient  ideas  of  nationality,  if  she 
consented  to  lose  her  distinctness  of  race,  and  to  merge  herself 
in  a  stronger  nation,  but  a  stranger  in  blood,  in  race,  in  religion, 
oh,  where  would  be  the  glories  that  followed  that  day ;  where 
would  be  Judas  Maccabeus ;  where  would  be  the  glory  of  that 
family  who  led  the  people  of  God  ;  where  would  be  all  the 
subsequent  distinctness  of  Jewish  glory  that  followed  that  noble 
resistance,  when  a  daughter  of  Judea  was  able  to  go  forth,  and 
with  her  woman's  hand  cut  off  the  invader's  head  ?  The  As- 
syrian Empire  broke  into  pieces,  but  Judea  remained,  because 
the  people  had  the  grace  to  say  in  that  day,  "  You  say  you  will 
destroy  us  unless  we  give  up  our  faith,  unless  we  consent  to  be- 
come a  province  of  your  empire,  unless  we  merge  our  distinct 
nationality  in  yours.  Speak  not  so,  for  we  are  children  of  the 
saints,  and  we  look  forward  to  the  promises  which  the  Lord 
hath  made  to  that  people  who  never  changes  its  faith  in  Him." 
Ireland  looks  forward  to  whatever  of  prosperity,  whatever  of 
freedom,  whatever  of  glory  is  in  store  for  her.  She  will  not 
seek  it  before  its  time,  with  rash  or  rebellious  hand.  She  has 
learned  too  well  the  lesson  of  patience.  She  will  not  seek  it 
until  God,  in  the  revolution  of  ages,  sends  it  to  her ;  but  it  will 
certainly  come,  because  that  nation  has  preserved  its  national 
existence  by  preserving  its  supernatural  life  in  God.  It  will  not 
always  be  night.     The  clouds  will  not  always  lie  theie.     It  will 


oj  the  Irish  People.  237 

not  always  be  that  the  Irishman  is  uncertain  of  the  footing  that 
he  has  in  the  land,  until  he  lies  down  in  the  grave.  It  will  not 
always  be,  as  I  heard  once  an  old  woman  say,  weeping  in  a  church- 
yard,  "  I  had  land,  I  had  a  place  in  this  country,  I  had  a  house. 
Oh,  God !  they  took  them  all  from  me,  and  nothing  remains 
but  this  grave."  It  will  not  always  be  thus.  Justice,  glory, 
power,  are  in  the  hands  of  God.  Glory  and  power  are  the  gifts 
of  God  to  every  nation.  To  some  that  glory  and  that  power  is 
given,  even  after  they  have  forsaken  the  Lord  their  God ;  but 
when  it  comes  to  dear  old  Ireland,  it  will  be  a  reward  for  her 
faith,  and  for  her  love  of  Jesus  Christ. 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH  THE  SAL- 
VATION OF  SOCIETY. 


[Delivered  in  the  Church  of  St.  Charles  Borromeo,  Brooklyn,  in  aid  of  the  Hospital 

in  charge  of  the  Sisters  of  the  Good  Shepherd.] 

Y  FRIENDS:  The  subject  which,  as  you  know,  has 
been  announced  to  you,  and  which  I  purpose  to  treat 
before  you  this  evening,  is  the  proposition  that  "  The 
Catholic  Church  is  the  Salvation  of  Society."  Per- 
haps there  are  some  amongst  you  who  think  I  am  an  un- 
wontedly  courageous  man  to  make  so  wild  and  so  rash  an 
assertion.  And  it  must  be  acknowledged,  indeed,  that  for  the 
past  eighteen  hundred  years  that  the  Catholic  Church  has 
existed,  society  has  always  endeavored  to  get  away  from  her 
grasp,  and  to  live  without  her.  People  who  admit  the  action  of 
the  Church,  who  allow  it  to  influence  their  history,  who  let  it 
influence  their  lives — if  they  rise  to  the  height  of  their  Christian 
elevation,  if  they  conform  themselves  to  the  teachings  of  what 
is  true,  if  they  avail  themselves  of  the  graces  of  the  Church — 
they  are  very  often  scoffed  at,  and  called  a  priest-ridden  and 
besotted  people.  Now-a-days,  it  is  the  fashion  to  look  upon  that 
man  as  the  best  of  his  class  who  has  succeeded  the  most  com- 
pletely in  emancipating  himself  from  every  control  of  religion, 
or  of  the  Catholic  Church.  In  one  sense,  it  is  a  great  advantage 
to  a  man  to  have  no  religion — to  shake  off  the  influence  of  the 
Church.  Such  a  man  remains  without  a  conscience,  and  without 
remorse.  He  saves  himself  from  those  moments  of  uneasiness 
and  self-reproach  that  come  to  most  men  until  they  completely 
lose  all  reverence  for  God ;  and  the  consequence  is,  that  if  he  is 
a  sinner,  and  in  the  way  of  sin,  he  enjoys  it  all  the  more ;  and 


The  Catholic  Church  the  Salvation  of  Society.  239 

he  can  make  the  more  use  of  his  time  in  every  pathway  of 
iniquity,  if  he  has  no  obstacles  of  conscience  or  of  religion  to 
fetter  him.  So  far,  it  is  an  advantage  to  be  without  religion. 
The  robber,  for  instance,  can  rob  more  confidently  if  he  can 
manage  to  forget  that  there  is  a  God  above  him.  The  murderer 
can  wash  his  hands  more  complacently,  no  matter  how  deeply 
he  stains  them,  if  there  is  no  condemning  record,  no  accusing 
voice,  no  ear  to  hear  the  voice  of  the  blood  that  cries  out  against 
him  for  vengeance.  He  can  pursue  his  misdeeds  all  the  more 
at  his  own  ease.  And  so,  for  this,  amongst  many  other  reasons, 
the  world  is  constantly  trying  to  emancipate  itself  from  the 
dominion  of  God,  and  from  the  control  of  the  Church — the  mes- 
senger of  the  Saviour  of  the  world.  It  would  seem,  therefore, 
at  first  sight,  rather  a  hazardous  thing  to  stand  up  in  the  face 
of  the  world,  and  in  the  face  of  society  to-day — this  boasted 
society — and  say  to  them  :  "You  cannot  live — you  cannot  get 
on  without  the  Catholic  Church!  She  can  do  without  you  !  A 
coterie  here !  A  tribe  there !  A  nation  elsewhere  !  A  few 
millions  more  or  less,  is,  humanly  speaking,  of  little  account  to 
her.  She  can  do  without  you.  But  you,  at  your  peril,  must 
let  her  in,  because  you  cannot  do  without  her !  "  Now,  this  is 
the  pith  and  substance  of  all  that  I  intend  to  say  to  you  here 
to-night ;  but  not  to  say  it  without  proof;  for  I  do  not 
ask  any  man  here  to  accept  one  iota  of  what  I  say,  on  my  mere 
assertion,  until  I  have  proved  it. 

My  proposition,  then,  is,  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  the  sal 
vation  of  society ;  and  it  involves  three  distinct  propositions, 
although  it  may  appear  to  you  to  be  only  one :  First,  it  involves 
the  proposition  that  society  requires  to  be  saved  ;  then,  it  involves 
the  proposition  that  the  Catholic  Church,  so  far,  has  been  the  sal- 
vation of  the  world  in  times  past;  out  of  which  grows  the  third 
proposition,  namely,  that  the  Church  Catholic  is  necessary  to  the 
world  in  all  future  times  ;  and  it  is  her  destiny  to  be,  in  time  to 
come,  what  she  has  been  in  time  past — the  salvation  of  society. 
These  are  three  distinct  propositions.  Let  us  consider  the  first; 
Society  requires  to  be  saved  because  it  cannot  save  itself. 

The  man  who  admires  this  century  of  ours,  and  who  serenely 
glories  in  it — who  calls  it  the  "  Age  of  Progress  "< — the  "  Age 
of  Enlightenment ;" — who  speaks  of  his  own  land — be  it  Ireland 
or  America,  or  Italy  or  France — as  a  country  of  enlightenment 


^40  The  Catholic  Church  the 

and  its  people  as  an  enlightened  people — this  man  stands  amazed 
when  I  say  to  him  that  this  boasted  society  requires  salvation 
Somebody  or  other  must  save  it.  For,  consider  what  it  has 
done.  What  has  it  produced  without  the  saving  influence  of 
the  Catholic  Church  ?  We  may  analyze  society,  as  I  intend  to 
view  it,  from  an  intellectual  stand-point.  Then  we  shall  see  the 
society  of  learning — the  society  of  art  and  of  literature.  Or  we 
may  view  it  from  a  moral  stand-point — that  is  to  say,  in  the 
government  of  the  world,  and  how  the  wheels  of  society  work 
in  this  boasted  progress  of  ours — emancipated  from  the  Cath- 
olic Church,  as  this  society  has  been  mainly  for  the  last  three 
hundred  years ;  in  some  countries  more,  in  some  countries  less, 
in  some  countries  entirely.  Now,  I  ask  you,  what  has  this  so- 
ciety produced,  intellectually,  morally,  politically  ?  Intellectu- 
ally, it  has  produced  a  philosophy  that  asks  us,  at  this  hour  of 
the  day,  to  believe  in  ghosts.  The  last  climax  of  the  philo- 
sophy of  this  nineteenth  century  of  ours  is  "  Spiritualism,"  of 
which  you  have  all  heard.  The  philosopher  of  to-day,  unlike 
even  the  philosopher  of  the  Pagan  times  of  old,  does  not  direct 
his  studies,  nor  the  labors  of  his  mind,  to  the  investigation  of 
the  truth  and  of  the  development  of  the  hidden  secrets  of 
nature — of  the  harmonies  of  the  soul  of  man — of  the  wants  of 
the  spirit  of  man.  To  none  of  these  does  the  philosopher  of 
to-day  direct  his  attention.  But  this  man — this  leader  of  mine 
in  society — gets  a  lot  of  his  friends  around  a  table,  and  there 
they  sit  and  listen  until  "  the  spirits  "  begin  to  knock ;  that  is 
the  pith  and  substance  of  his  philosophy.  Another  man — one 
of  another  great  school  (and,  indeed,  these  two  schools  may  be 
said  to  have  divided  the  philosophical  empire  of  our  age), — a 
man  who  claims  to  speak  and  to  be  represented  by  living  voice  in 
our  churches  and  pulpits,  says:  "  Oh,  man !  son  of  the  children 
of  men — since  thou  hast  received  a  commission  to  sound  the 
Scriptures — to  mend  the  "  Word  of  God,"  as  it  is  called — be- 
lieve me  when  I  tell  you  that  our  common  ancestor  was  the 
ape — and  that  it  was  by  the  merest  accident — the  accident  of 
progression,  eating  a  certain  kind  of  food,  commingling  with 
the  comeliest  of  the  monkey  tribe,  endeavoring,  by  degrees,  to 
walk  erect  instead  of  crawling  on  our  hands  and  feet — it  was  by 
the  merest  accident — a  congeries  of  accidental  circumstances — 
that  we  happen  to  be  men."     This   is  the  philosophy  of  the 


Salvation  of  Society.  24 1 

nineteenth  century.  This  is  the  intellectual  grandeur  and  "  Pro- 
gress of  the  Age,"  that  says  :  "  I  don't  require  salvation  :" 

The  moral  progress  of  this  society,  which  has  emancipated 
itself  from  the  Catholic  Church — what  is  it  ?  It  has  produced 
in  this,  our  society,  sins,  of  which,  as  a  priest  and  a  man,  I  am 
ashamed  to  speak.  It  has  produced  in  the  city  of  New  York 
the  terrible  insult  to  a  crucified  Lord — that  a  woman,  pretend- 
ing to  be  modest,  should  have  chosen  Good  Friday  night  to  ad- 
vocate impurity  under  the  name  of  free-love!  Just  as  the 
intellectual  development  of  our  society,  emancipated  from  the 
Church,  has  arrived  at  the  glorious  discovery  of"  Spiritualism," 
so  the  moral  development  of  this  age  of  ours  has  arrived  at  the 
deep  depth  of  free-love.  Oh,  grand  and  holy  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, I  hail  thee !  Thou  art  the  parent  of  divorce.  A  brave 
century,  that  ventured  to  destroy  the  bond  that  God  Himself 
had  made,  and  commanded  no  man  should  sunder.  Thy  mar- 
ried daughters  must  have  recourse  to  the  arts  of  the  courtesan 
and  the  drugs  of  the  murderer  in  order  to  preserve  their  charms, 
and  so  keep  a  slender  and  frail  hold  on  the  adulterous  hearts  of 
thy  brave  married  sons.  The  old  names  of  husband  and  wife 
are  wiped  out  of  thy  enlightened  vocabulary.  They  have  per- 
ished ;  they  are  designations  of  the  past.  Oh,  thou  base  and 
filthy  age  of  low  desire  and  luxury,  of  dishonesty  and  Mormon- 
ism,  it  is  well  for  thee  that  the  holy  Catholic  Church,  the  spouse 
of  Christ,  the  salt  of  the  earth,  is  in  the  midst  of  thee,  rebuking 
thee  with  fearless  and  unchanging  voice,  sweetening  thy  pol- 
luted atmosphere  with  the  fragrance  of  her  virtues,  atoning  for 
thy  vices  with  fast,  prayer,  and  sacrifice  ,  else,  surely,  thou 
Sodom  of  the  centuries,  the  Lord  would  consume  thee  with  the 
fire  of  his  wrath  ! 

What  is  the  political  spirit  of  society,  and  the  perfection  to 
which  it  has  attained  since  it  has  been  emancipated  from  the 
Church  ?  Why,  it  has  produced  the  "  politician"  of  our  day. 
It  has  produced  the  ruler  who  imagines  that  he  is  set  up, 
throughout  all  the  nations,  only  to  grasp — justly  if  he  can,  un- 
justly if  he  has  no  other  means — every  privilege  of  power  and 
of  absolutism.  This  age  of  ours  gives  us  statesmen  who  make 
secret  treaties  to  rob  their  neighbors,  kings  who  shed  their  peo- 
ple's blood  for  the  mere  whims  of  personal  ambition,  or  else  to 
carry  out  the  schemes  of  a  wily,  dishonest  diplomacy ;  robber- 

16 


242  The  Catholic   Church  the 

monarchs,  at  the  head  of  robber-armies,  plundering  their  honest 
and  unoffending  fellow-sovereigns  ;  millions  of  armed  men 
watching  each  other  because  right  and  justice  have  ceased  to  be 
sufficient  protection  to  men  or  nations ;  the  people  oppressed 
and  plundered  to  serve  the  purposes  of  the  lustful  ambition  of 
men  in  power  ;  venality  and  corruption  everywhere  overflowing. 
It  has  produced  in  the  people  an  unwillingness  to  obey  even 
just  laws.  I  need  not  tell  you  ;  you  have  the  evidence  of  your 
own  senses  ;  you  have  records  of  the  daily  actions  of  the  world 
laid  before  you  every  morning.  This  is  the  issue  of  the  domi- 
nant spirit  of  society,  when  society  emancipates  itself  from  the 
Church,  and,  by  so  doing,  endeavors  to  shake  off  God.  Now  we 
come  to  the  great  question  :  guts  medebitur  ?  Who  shall  touch 
society  with  a  scientific  and  healing  hand  ?  What  virtue  can  we 
infuse  into  it  ?  That  must  come,  I  assert,  from  God,  and  from 
Him  alone,  of  whom  the  Scriptures  say  that  "  He  made  the 
nations  of  the  earth  for  health ;"  that  He  has  made  our  nature 
so  that,  even  in  its  worst  infirmity,  it  is  capable  of  cure.  He 
came  and  found  it  in  its  worst  infirmity  ;  society  rotten  to  its 
heart's  core  ;  and  the  interior  rottenness — the  obscurity  of  the 
intellect — the  corruption  of  the  heart — manifesting  itself  in  the 
actions  and  sins  of  which  St.  Paul,  the  Apostle,  says,  "  Nccno- 
minabitur  in  vobis" — that  they  must  not  be  even  mentioned 
among  Christian  men.  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  because  He 
was  God — equal  to  the  Father — girding  Himself  up  to  the 
mighty  work  of  healing  this  society,  came  down  from  heaven 
and  cured  it,  when  no  other  hand  but  His  could  have  touched 
it  with  healing;  when  no  other  virtue  or  power  save  His  could, 
at  all,  have  given  life  to  the  dead  world,  purity  to  the  corrupt 
world,  light  to  the  darkened  intellect  of  man.  From  Him  came 
life  to  the  dead  ;  and  that  life  was  light  to  the  darkened  and 
strength  to  the  weak,  because  He  was  God. 

Then  the  nations  of  Greece  and  Rome  appeared  in  the  strength 
of  their  power — proud  in  their  mental  culture — proud  in  the 
grandeur  of  their  civilization — and  contemptuously  put  away 
and  despised  the  message  of  the  divine  faith  which  was  sent  to 
them  ;  and  for  three  hundred  long  years  persecuted  the  Church 
of  God.  This  great  instructress,  who  came  to  talk  in  a  lan- 
guage that  they  knew  not,  and  to  teach  them  things  that  they 
never  heard   of — both  the  things  of  heaven  and  the  things  of 


Salvation  of  Society.  243 

rarth — this  great  instructress,  for  three  hundred  years,  lay  hid 
ir.  the  caves  and  catacombs  of  the  earth,  afraid  to  show  her 
face ;  for  the  whole  world — all  the  power  of  Pagan  Rome,  the 
mistress  of  the  world — was  raised  against  her.  There  was  blood 
upon  her  virgin  face.  There  was  blood  upon  her  holy  bosom — 
the  blood  of  the  innocent  and  of  the  pure  ;  and  all  the  world 
knew  of  Christianity  was  the  strong  testimony  which,  from  time 
to  time,  was  given  of  it,  by  youth  and  maiden,  in  the  arena  of 
Rome,  or  in  the  amphitheatres  of  Antioch  or  of  Corinth.  Then, 
in  punishment  for  their  pride — as  an  act  of  vengeance  upon 
them  for  their  rejection  of  His  gospel — the  Almighty  God 
resolved  to  break  up  their  ancient  civilization  ;  to  sweep 
away  their  power  ;  to  bring  the  hordes  of  barbarous  nations 
from  the  north  of  Europe  into  the  very  heart  of  Rome, 
the  centre  of  the  world's  empire,  and  to  crush  and  de- 
stroy it  with  fire  and  sword,  and  utterly  to  break  up  all  that 
society  which  was  formed,  of  old,  upon  the  literature  and  the 
philosophy  of  Greece  and  of  Rome.  Consequently,  we  behold, 
in  the  fifth  century,  all  the  ancient  civilization  completely  de- 
stroyed, and  the  world  reduced  again  almost  to  the  chaos  of 
barbarism  from  which  the  Pagans  of  old  had  raised  it.  Arts 
and  sciences  perished,  when  the  Goth  and  Vandal,  Visigoth, 
and  Ostragoth,  and  Hun  swept  down  like  a  swarm  of  locusts, 
over  the  old  Roman  Empire,  and  all  the  land  subject  to  Roman 
sway.  A  man  justly  called  the  "  Scourge  of  God "  led  the 
Huns.  Alaric  was  at  the  head  of  his  Visigoths.  He  swept 
over  Rome.  He  was  asked  to  spare  the  city,  out  of  respect  to 
the  civilization  of  the  world  and  the  tombs  of  the  Apostles ! 
"  I  cannot  withhold,"  exclaimed  the  Visigoth,  "  I  cannot  with- 
hold. I  hear  within  me  a  mysterious  voice  which  says,  '  Alaric  ! 
on  !  on  to  Rome  !'  "  And  so  he  came  and  sacked  the  city, 
burned  and  destroyed  its  temples,  and  its  palaces,  and  its  libra- 
ries, and  its  glories  of  painting  and  sculpture — hurled  them  all 
into  the  dust !  And  the  desolation  spread  world-wide  where- 
ever  a  vestige  of  ancient  civilization  was  found,  until,  at  the 
end  of  that  fatal  century,  the  Church  of  God  found  herself 
standing  upon  the  ruins  of  a  world  that  had  passed  away. 
Before  her  were  the  countless  hordes  of  the  savage  children  of 
the  North,  out  of  which  rugged  material  it  was  her  destiny  and 
her  office  to  form  the  society  of  modern  times.     Hard,  indeed, 


»44 


The   Catholic  Church  the 


was  the  task  which  she  undertook — not  only  to  evangelize  them 
to  teach  them  the  things  of  God,  but  also  to  teach  them  the 
beauties  of  human  art  and  human  science — to  soften  them  with 
the  genial  influences  and  the  tender  appliances  of  learning ;  to 
gain  their  hearts,  and  soften  their  souls,  and  mollify  their  man- 
ners, and  refine  them  by  every  human  appliance  as  well  as  by 
every  Divine  influence.  For  this  task  did  she  gather  herself  up. 
She,  in  that  day,  collected  with  a  careful  and  with  a  venerating 
hand  all  that  remained  out  of  the  ruin  of  ancient  literature,  of 
ancient  poetry,  of  ancient  history,  in  the  languages  of  Greece 
and  of  Rome.  She  gathered  them  lovingly  and  carefully  to  her 
bosom.  She  laid  them  up  in  her  sacred  recesses — in  her  clois- 
ters. She  applied,  diligently,  to  the  study  of  them,  and  to  the 
diffusion  of  them,  the  minds  of  the  holiest  and  best  of  her  con- 
secrated children  ;  until,  in  a  few  years,  all  that  the  world  had 
of  refinement,  of  learning,  of  all  that  was  refining  and  gentle, 
was  all  concentrated  in  the  person  of  the  lowly  monk, 
who,  full  of  the  lore  of  Greece  and  Rome — full  of  ancient 
learning  as  well  as  of  that  of  the  time — an  artist — a  painter 
— a  musician — a  man  of  letters — covering  all  with  the  hu 
mility  of  his  profession,  and  hiding  all  in  the  cloister,  yet 
treasured  all  up  for  the  society  that  was  to  come  after  him,  and 
for  the  honor  and  glory  of  God  and  of  His  Church.  And  so, 
by  degrees,  the  Church  was  enabled  to  found  schools — and 
then,  colleges — and  thence  to  form,  gradually,  universities — and 
to  obtain  for  them  and  to  insure  unto  them  civic  and  municipal 
rights,  as  we  shall  see  farther  on. 

By  degrees  she  founded  the  great  mediaeval  universities, 
gathering  together  all  those  who  wished  to  learn,  and  sending 
forth  from  her  cloisters,  her  Dominicans,  her  Franciscans,  to 
teach  philosophy  and  theology,  whilst  they  illustrated  the  very 
highest  art  in  the  beauty  of  their  paintings  and  the  splendor 
which  they  threw  around  the  Christian  sciences.  Universities 
were  founded  by  her  into  which  she  gathered  the  youth  of  vari- 
ous nations  ;  and  then,  sending  them  home,  amongst  their  rude 
and  rugged  fellow-citizens,  she  spread  gradually  the  flame  of 
human  knowledge,  as  well  as  the  fire  of  Divine  faith  and  sanc- 
tity; and  thus,  for  many  a  long  century,  did  the  Church  labor 
assiduously,  lovingly,  perseveringly,  and  so  secured  unto  us 
whatever  blessings  of  learning  we  possess  to-day.     She  saved 


Salvation   of  Society.  245 

society  for  the  time,  by  drawing  forth  its  rude,  chaotic  elements 
and  by  her  patient  action  in  creating  the  light  of  knowledge 
where  the  darkness  of  ignorance  was  before — with  patient  and 
persevering  effort  bringing  forth  order  out  of  disorder — until  her 
influence  over  the  world  was  like  the  word  of  God,  when,  upon 
the  first  day  of  creation,  He  made  all  things,  and  made  them  to 
exist  where  nothing  but  void  and  darkness  were  before.  Nor 
can  the  history  of  by-gone  times  be  disputed  in  this  ;  nor  can 
any  man  allege  that  I  am  claiming  too  much  for  the  Catholic 
Church  when  I  say  that  she  alone  has  preserved  to  us  all  the 
splendor  of  the  Pagan  literature  of  the  ancient  times — all  the 
arts  and  sciences ;  that  she  alone  has  founded  the  great  schools 
and  universities  of  Christendom,  and  of  the  civilized  world — 
even  in  Protestant  countries  to-day ;  nay,  more,  that  nearly  all 
the  great  scholars  who  shone  as  stars  in  the  firmament  of  learning 
were  her  children — either  consecrated  to  her  in  the  priesthood,  or 
attached  to  her  by  the  strongest  and  the  tenderest  bonds  of 
faith.  Lest  my  word  in  this  matter  be  considered  exaggerated, 
let  me  read  for  you  the  testimony  of  a  Protestant  writer — to 
what  I  say.     He  says  to  us : 

"  If  the  Catholic  Church  had  done  nothing  more  than  to  preserve 
for  us,  by  painful  solicitude  and  unrewarded  toil,  the  precepts  and 
intellectual  treasures  of  Greece  and  Rome,  she  would  have  been 
entitled  to  our  everlasting  gratitude.  But  her  hierarchy  did 
not  merely  preserve  these  treasures.  They  taught  the  modern 
world  how  to  use  them.  We  can  never  forget  that  at  least  nine 
out  of  every  ten  of  all  the  great  colleges  and  universities  in 
Christendom  were  founded  by  monks  or  priests,  bishops  or 
archbishops.  This  is  true  of  the  most  famous  institutions  in 
Protestant  as  well  as  in  Catholic  countries.  And  equally  un- 
deniable is  the  fact,  that  the  greatest  discoveries  in  the  sciences 
and  in  the  arts  (with  the  sole  exception  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton) 
have  been  made  either  by  Catholics  or  by  those  who  were  edu- 
cated by  them.  Our  readers  know  that  Copernicus,  the  author 
of  our  present  system  of  astronomy,  lived  and  died  a  poor 
parish  priest,  in  an  obscure  village ;  and  Galileo  lived  and  died 
a  Catholic.  The  great  Kepler,  although  a  Protestant  himself, 
always  acknowledged  that  he  received  the  most  valuable  part  of 
his  education  from  the  monks  and  priests.  It  were  easy  to  add 
to  these  illustrious    names   many   equally  renowned,    in  other 


246  The   Catholic   Church  the 

departments  of  science,  as  well  as  literature  and  the  arts  in 
eluding  those  of  statesmen,  orators,  historians,  poets,  and 
artists." 

This  is  the  testimony  of  a  Protestant  writer,  confirmed  by  the 
voice  of  history,  to  which  I  fearlessly  appeal,  when  I  lay  down 
the  proposition,  that  if  intellectual  darkness,  if  the  barbarism 
of  ignorance,  be  a  disease  in  society,  then  history  proves  that 
the  Catholic  Church  has  been  the  salvation  of  society  in  the  cure 
of  that  disease.  I  might  go  deeper  here.  I  might  show  you 
here,  in  the  beautiful  reasoning  of  the  great  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas,  how,  in  the  Catholic  Church  alone,  is  the  solid  basis 
of  all  intellectual  knowledge.  "  For,"  observes  the  saint,  "  every 
science,  no  matter  how  different  it  may  be  from  others — every 
science  rests  upon  certain  principles  that  are  taken  for  granted 
— certain  axioms  that  are  accepted,  without  being  proved. 
Now,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  the  principle  of  acknowledged  cer- 
tainty, of  some  kind  or  other,  lies  at  the  base  and  at  the  founda- 
tion of  every  science,  and  of  every  form  of  intellectual  power." 
But,  in  the  sciences  and  in  the  intellectual  world,  we  find  the 
same  order,  the  same  exquisite  harmony,  which,  in  the  works  of 
God,  we  find  in  the  material  and  physical  creation.  The  prin- 
ciple, therefore,  of  all  the  arts  and  sciences,  each  with  its  re- 
spective power,  is,  that  all  go  up  in  regular  order  from  the 
lowest  form  of  art  to  the  highest  of  human  sciences — astronomy 
— until  they  touch  divine  theology,  which  teaches  of  God  and 
of  the  things  of  God.  Upon  the  certainty  of  that  First  Science 
depends  the  very  idea  of  "  certainty,"  upon  which  every  other 
science  is  based.  And,  therefore,  the  key-note  of  all  knowledge 
is  found  in  the  science  .of  divine  theology,  which  teaches  of  God. 
Now,  outside  of  the  Catholic  Church  there  is  no  theology — as  a 
science ;  because  science  involves  certain  knowledge,  and  there 
is  no  certain  knowledge  of  divine  things  outside  the  Catholic 
Church.  There  is  no  certain  knowledge  of  divine  things  where 
truth  is  said  to  consist  in  the  inquiry  after  truth,  as  in  Protest- 
antism, where  religion  is  reduced  from  the  principle  of  immu- 
table faith,  to  the  mere  result  of  reasoning,  amounting  to  a 
strong  opinion.  There  is  no  certainty,  therefore,  outside  of  that 
Church  that  speaks  of  God  in  the  very  language  of  God ;  that 
gives  a  message  sent  from  the  veiy  lips  of  God ;  that  puts  that 
message  into  the  God-like  form  of  immutable  dogma  before  the 


Salvation  of  Society.  247 

mi  ids  of  His  children,  and  so  starts  them  in  the  pursuit  of  all 
human  knowledge,  with  the  certain  light  of  divinely-revealed 
truth,  and  with  the  principle  of  certainty  deeply  seated  in  their 
minds. 

Now,  we  pass  from  the  intellectual  view  of  society  to  the 
moral  view  of  it.  In  order  to  understand  the  action  of  the 
Church  here,  as  the  sole  salvation  of  society,  I  must  ask  you 
to  consider  the  dangers  which  threaten  society  in  its  moral 
aspect.  These  dangers  are  the  following :  First  of  all,  the  lib- 
ertinism, the  instability,  the  inconstancy,  and  the  impurity  of 
man.  Secondly,  the  absence  of  the  element  of  holiness  and 
sanctity  in  the  education  of  childhood.  Thirdly,  the  sense  of 
irresponsibility,  or  a  kind  of  reckless  personal  liberty  which  not 
only  passes  us  over  from  under  the  control  of  law,  but  cuts  off 
our  communication  with  God,  and  makes  us  forget  that  we  are 
responsible  to  God  for  every  action  of  our  lives ;  and  so,  gradu- 
ally brings  a  man  to  believe  that  liberty  and  freedom  mean 
irresponsible  licentiousness  and  impurity.  These  I  hold  to  be 
the  three  great  evils  that  threaten  society.  The  inconstancy  of 
man — for  man  is  fickle  in  his  friendship,  is  unstable  in  his  love, 
is  inconstant  in  his  affections,  subject  to  a  thousand  passing 
sensations — his  soul  laid  open  to  appeals  from  every  sense — to 
the  ebb  and  flow  of  every  pulse  and  every  passion,  answering 
with  quick  response  every  impression  of  eye  and  ear,  and  liable 
to  change  its  estimate  and  judgment  by  the  ever-varying  evi- 
dence of  the  senses.  Need  I  tell  you,  my  friends — what  your 
own  heart  has  so  often  told  you — how  inconstant  we  are  ?  how 
the  thing  that  captivates  us  to-day,  we  will  look  coldly  upon  to- 
morrow, and  the  next  day,  perhaps,  with  eyes  of  disgust  ?  Need 
I  tell  you  how  fickle  is  that  love,  that  friendship  of  the  human 
heart,  against  which,  and  its  inconstancy,  the  Holy  Ghost  seems 
to  warn  us  ?  "  Put  not  thy  trust  in  princes,  nor  in  the  children 
of  men,  in  whom  there  is  no  salvation."  To  guard  against  this 
inconstancy  it  is  necessary  to  call  in  divine  grace  and  help  from 
heaven.  For  it  is  a  question  of  confirming  the  heart  of  man  in 
the  steadiness,  in  the  unchangeableness  and  in  the  purity  of  the 
love  that  is  to  last  all  his  life  long.  Therefore  it  is  that  the 
Catholic  Church  sanctifies  the  solemn  contract  by  which  man 
promises  to  his  fellow-creature  that  he  will  love  her,  that  he  will 
never  allow  that  love  for  her  to  grow  cold  in  his  bosom,  that  he 


24S  The  Catholic  CI  lurch  the 

will  never  allow  even  a  thought  of  any  other  love  than  hers  to 
cross  his  imagination  or  enter  into  his  soul,  that  he  will  love  her 
in  the  days  of  her  old  age  as  he  loves  her  to-day,  in  the  fresh- 
ness of  her  beauty,  as  she  stands  by  his  side  before  the  altar  of 
God,  and  puts  her  virgin  hand  into  his.  And  she  swears  to  him 
a  corresponding  love.  But,  ah !  who  can  assure  to  her  that  the 
heart  which  promises  to  be  hers  to-day  will  be  true  to  its  prom- 
ise? who  can  insure  to  her  that  love,  ever  inconstant  in  its  own 
nature,  and  acted  upon  by  a  thousand  influences,  calculated 
first  to  alienate,  then  to  destroy  it?  How  can  she  have  the 
courage  to  believe  that  the  word  that  passed  from  that  man's 
lips,  at  that  altar,  shall  never  be  regretted — never  be  repealed  ? 
I  answer,  the  Catholic  Church  comes  in  and  calls  down  a  special 
sacramental  grace  from  heaven  ;  lets  in  the  veiy  blood  of  the 
Saviour,  in  its  sacramental  form,  to  touch  these  two  hearts,  and, 
by  purifying  them,  to  elevate  their  affection  into  something 
more  than  gross  love  of  sense,  and  to  shed  upon  those  two 
hearts,  thus  united,  the  rays  of  divine  grace,  to  tinge  their  lives 
somewhat  with  the  light  of  that  ineffable  love  that  binds  the 
Lord  to  His  Church.  And  so,  in  that  sacrament  of  matrimony, 
the  Church  provides  a  divine  remedy  for  the  inconstancy  of  the 
heart  of  man ;  and  she  also  provides  a  sanctifying  influence 
which,  lying  at  the  very  fountain-head,  and  source,  and  spring 
of  our  nature,  sanctifies  the  whole  stream  of  society  that  flows 
from  the  sacramental  and  sanctifying  love  of  Christian  marriage. 
Do  you  not  know  that  this  society,  in  separating  itself  from  the 
Church,  has  literally  destroyed  itself?  If  Protestantism,  or 
Unitarianism,  or  any  other  form  of  error  did  nothing  else  than 
simply  to  remove  from  the  sacrament  of  matrimony  its  sacra- 
mental character — its  sanctifying  grace — by  that  very  act,  that 
error  of  religious  unbelief,  it  destroys  society.  The  man  who 
destroys,  in  the  least  degree,  the  firmness  of  the  bond  that  can 
never  be  broken,  because  it  is  bound  by  the  hand  of  God,  and 
sealed  with  the  sacramental  seal — the  man  that  touches  that 
bond — the  man  that  takes  from  that  sacrament  one  single  iota 
of  its  grace,  makes  himself  thereby  the  enemy  of  society,  and 
pollutes  the  very  fountain-head  from  which  the  stream  of  our 
life  comes.  When  the  prophet  of  old  came  into  the  city  of 
Jericho,  they  showed  him  the  stream  that  ran  by  the  city  walls, 
and  they  said  to  him :   "  Behold,  the  situation  of  this  city  is  very 


Salvation  of  Society.  249 

good,  as  thou,  my  lord,  seest ;  but  the  waters  are  very  bad  and 
the  ground  barren."  He  did  not  attempt  to  heal  the  stream  as 
it  flowed  thereby;  but  he  said,  "Bring  me  a  new  vessel  and  put 
salt  into  it ;  and  when  they  had  brought  it,  he  went  to  the  spring 
of  the  waters  and  cast  the  salt  into  it  and  said :  Thus  saith  the 
Lord,  I  have  healed  these  waters,  and  there  shall  be  no  more  in 
them  death  or  bitterness;  and  the  waters  were  healed  unto  this 
day."  Thus  he  purified  the  fountain-head  of  the  spring  of  the 
waters  of  Jericho.  Such  is  the  sacrament  of  marriage  to  human 
society.  The  future  of  the  world — the  moral  future  of  mankind 
— of  the  rising  generations,  all  depend  upon  the  purity  and  the 
sanctity  of  the  matrimonial  tie.  There  does  the  Church  of  God 
throw,  as  it  were,  the  sacramental  salt  of  divine  grace  into  the 
fountain-head  of  our  nature,  and  so  sanctifies  the  humanity  that 
springs  from  its  source. 

The  next  great  moral  influence  of  society  which  requires  the 
Church's  action,  is  education.  "  The  child."  as  you  know,  "  is 
father  to  the  man  ;"  and  what  the  child  is  to-day,  the  man  will 
be  in  twenty  or  thirty  years'  time.  Now,  the  young  soul  of  the 
child  is  like  the  earth  in  the  spring  season.  Childhood  is  the 
time  of  sowing  and  of  planting.  Whatever  is  put  into  that 
young  heart  in  the  early  days  of  childhood,  will  bring  up,  in  the 
summer  of  manhood,  and  in  the  autumn  of  old  age,  its  crop, 
either  of  good  or  of  evil.  And,  therefore,  it  is  the  most  impor- 
tant time  of  life.  The  future  of  the  world  depends  upon  the 
sanctity  of  education.  Now,  in  order  that  education  may  be 
bad,  it  is  not  necessary,  my  friends,  to  teach  the  child  anything 
bad.  In  order  to  make  education  bad,  it  is  quite  enough  to 
neglect  the  element  of  sanctity  and  of  religion.  It  is  quite 
enough  to  neglect  the  religious  portion  of  the  education.  By 
that  very  defect  the  education  becomes  bad.  And  why?  Be- 
cause, such  is  our  nature  such — the  infirmity  of  our  fallen  state — 
such  is  the  atmosphere  of  the  scenes  in  which  we  live  in  this 
world — such  the  power  of  the  infernal  agencies  that  are  busily 
at  work  for  our  destruction,  that,  educate  the  child  as  carefully 
as  you  may,  surround  him  with  the  holiest  influences,  fill  him 
with  the  choicest  graces,  you  still  run  great  risks  that,  some  day 
or  other,  the  serpent  of  sin  will  gain  an  entrance  into  that  young 
soul,  in  spite  of  you.  How  much  more  if  that  young  heart  be 
not  replenished  with  divine  grace  !     How  much  more  if  that 


250  The  Catholic   Church  the 

young  soul  be  not  fenced  round  by  a  thousand  appliances,  and 
a  thousand  defences  against  its  enemies !  And  thus  do  we  see 
that  the  principle  of  bad  education  is  established  the  moment 
the  strong  religious  element  is  removed.  Hence  it  is,  that  out 
of  the  sanctity  of  marriage  springs  the  sanctity  of  education  in 
the  Catholic  Church.  And  why?  Because  the  Church  of  God 
proclaims  that  the  marriage-bond  no  man  can  dissolve  ;  that 
that  marriage-bond,  so  long  as  death  does  not  come  in  to  sepa- 
rate the  man  and  wife — that  that  marriage-bond  is  the  one  con- 
tract which  no  power  on  this  earth  can  break.  Consequently, 
the  Catholic  woman  married  to  the  Catholic  man  knows  that  the 
moment  their  lips  mutually  pronounce  their  marriage-vows,  her 
position  is  defined  and  established  for  evermore ;  that  no  one 
can  put  her  down  from  the  holy  eminence  of  wife  or  of  mother, 
and  that  the  throne  which  she  occupies  in  the  household,  she 
never  can  live  to  see  occupied  by  another;  that  her  children  are 
assured  to  her  ;  and  that  she  is  left  in  her  undisputed  empire 
and  control  over  them.  She  knows  that — no  matter  how  the 
world  may  prosper  or  otherwise  with  her — that  she  is  sure,  at 
least,  of  her  position  as  a  wife,  and  of  her  claims  to  her  husband's 
love,  and  of  the  allegiance  of  his  worship.  She  knows  that  even 
though  she  may  have  wedded  him  in  the  days  of  poverty,  and 
that  should  he  rise  to  some  great  and  successful  position — even 
if  he  became  an  emperor — she  must  rise  with  him,  and  that  he 
can  never  discard  her  ;  and,  consequently,  she  feels  that  her 
children  are  her  own  forever.  Now,  the  element  of  sanctity  in 
the  family,  even  when  the  husband  is  a  good  man — even  when 
he  is  a  sacrament-going  man,  as  every  Catholic  man  ought  to 
be — yet  the  element  of  sanctity  in  the  family,  and  for  the  family, 
lies  with  the  woman.  It  is  the  privilege  of  the  mother.  She 
has  the  children  under  her  eye  and  under  her  care  the  livelong 
day.  She  has  the  formation  of  them — of  their  character — their 
first  sentiments,  thoughts,  and  works,  either  for  good  or  evil. 
The  seed  to  be  planted — the  formation  of  the  soul — is  in  the 
mother's  hands ;  and  therefore  it  is  that  the  character  of  the 
child  mainly  depends  on  the  formation  which  the  mother  gives 
it.  The  father  is  engaged  in  his  office,  in  keeping  his  business, 
or  at  his  work,  all  the  day  long.  His  example,  whether  for  good 
or  bad,  is  not  constantly  before  the  eyes — the  observant  eyes— 
of  the  child,  as  is  the  example  of  the  mother.     And  so  it  is,  m> 


Salvation  of  Society.  251 

friends,  that  all  depends  upon  the  mother ;  and  it  is  of  vital 
importance  that  that  mother  should  blend  in  herself  all  that  is 
pure,  holy,  tender,  and  loving,  and  that  she  be  assured  of  the 
sanctity  of  her  position,  of  which  the  Church  assures  her  by  the 
indissoluble  nature  of  the  marriage-tie. 

Again,  the  Church  of  God  follows  the  child  into  the  school, 
and  she  puts  before  the  young  eye,  even  before  reason  has 
opened — she  puts  before  the  young  sense  the  sight  of  things 
that  will  familiarize  the  mind  of  the  child  with  heaven  and  with 
heavenly  thoughts.  She  goes  before  the  world,  anticipates 
reason,  and  tries  to  get  the  start  of  that  "mystery  of  inquiry" 
which,  sooner  or  later,  lying  in  the  world,  shall  be  revealed  to 
the  eyes  and  the  soul  of  this  young  child.  Hence  it  is  that  in 
her  system  of  education  she  endeavors  to  mix  up  sacramental 
graces,  lessons  of  good,  pictures  of  divine  things,  holy  statues, 
little  prayers,  singing  of  hymns — all  these  religious  appliances — 
and  endeavors  to  mingle  them  all  constantly  and  largely  with 
every  element  of  human  education,  that  the  heart  may  be 
formed  as  well  as  the  mind,  and  that  the  will  may  be  strength- 
ened as  well  as  the  intellect  and  the  soul  of  man.  If,  then,  the 
evil  of  a  bad  education  be  one  of  the  evils  of  society,  I  hold 
that  the  Church  of  God,  in  her  scheme  and  plan  of  education, 
proves  that  she  is  the  salvation  of  society  by  touching  that  evil 
with  a  healing  hand. 

The  next  great  evil  affecting  the  morals  of  society  is  the  sense 
of  irresponsibility.  A  man  outside  of  the  Catholic  Church  is 
never  expected  to  call  himself  to  account  for  his  actions.  If  he 
speaks  evil  words,  if  he  thinks  evil  thoughts,  if  he  does  wrong 
things,  the  most  that  he  aspires  to  is  a  momentary  thought  of 
God.  Perhaps  he  forms  a  kind  of  resolution  not  to  do  these 
things  any  more.  But  there  is  no  excruciating  self-examination  ; 
there  is  no  humiliating  confession  ;  there  is  no  care  or  thought 
upon  motives  of  sorrow ;  there  is  no  painstaking  to  acquire  a 
firm  resolution  ;  there  are  none  of  the  restraints  against  a  return 
to  sin  with  which  the  sacramental  agencies  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  especially  through  the  sacrament  of  penance,  have 
made  us  all  familiar.  The  Catholic  man  feels  that  the  eye  of 
God  is  upon  him.  He  is  told  that,  every  time  the  Catholic 
Church  warns  him  to  prepare  for  confession.  He  is  toid  that, 
every  time  his  eyes,  wandering  through  the  church,  rest  upon 


252  The  Catholic  Church  the 

the  confessional.  He  is  told  that,  ©very  time  he  sees  the  priest 
standing  there,  with  his  stole  on,  and  the  penitent  going  in 
with  tearful  eyes,  and  coming  forth  with  eyes  beaming  with  joy 
and  with  the  delight  of  forgiveness.  He  is  told  this  in  a  thousand 
ways ;  and  it  is  brought  home  to  him  by  the  precepts  and  sacra- 
ments of  the  Church  at  stated  times  in  the  year.  The  conse- 
quence is,  that  he  is  made  to  believe  that  he  is  responsible  to 
Almighty  God  ;  and  therefore  this  obligation,  creating  a  sense 
of  responsibility,  rouses  and  excites  this  watchfulness  of  his 
own  conscience.  The  man  who  feels  that  the  eye  of  God  is 
upon  him  will  also  feel  that  the  eye  of  his  own  conscience  is 
upon  him.  For  watchfulness  begets  watchfulness.  If  the 
master  is  looking  on  whilst  a  servant  is  doing  anything,  the 
servant  will  endeavor  to  do  it  well,  and  he  will  keep  his  eye 
upon  the  master  whilst  the  master  is  present.  So  a  soldier, 
when  he  is  ordered  to  charge,  turns  his  look  upon  his  superior 
officer,  whilst  he  dashes  into  the  midst  of  the  foe.  And  so  it  is 
with  us.  Conscience  is  created,  conscience  is  fostered  and  cher- 
ished in  the  soul  by  a  sense  of  responsibility  which  Almighty 
God  gives  us  through  the  Church  and  through  her  sacraments. 
What  follows  from  this  ?  It  follows  that  the  Catholic  man, 
although  in  conscious  freedom,  is  conscious  that  he  must  always 
exercise  that  freedom  under  the  eye  of  God  and  under  the 
dominion  of  His  law  ;  so  that  in  him,  even  although  he  be  a 
sinner  for  a  time,  the  sense  of  freedom  never  degenerates  into 
positive  recklessness  or  license. 

Finally,  m  the  political  view  of  society,  the  dangers  that 
threaten  the  world  from  this  aspect,  are,  first  of  all,  absolutism, 
and  injustice,  and  oppression  in  rulers  ;  and,  secondly,  a  spirit 
of  rebellion,  even  against  just  and  established  government, 
amongst  the  governed.  For  the  well-ordering  of  society  lies 
in  this  :  that  he  who  governs  respects  those  whom  he  governs ; 
and  that  those  who  are  governed  by  him  recognize  in  him  only 
the  authority  that  comes  to  him  from  God.  I  say,  from  God.  I 
do  not  wish  here,  or  now,  to  enter  into  the  question  as  to  the 
source  of  power,  and  how  far  the  popular  element  may  or  may 
not  be  that  source ;  but  I  do  say,  that  where  the  power  exists, 
even  where  the  ruler  is  chosen  by  the  people,  that  he  exercises 
that  power  then  as  an  official  of  the  Almighty  God,  to  whom 
belongs  the  government  of  the  whole  system  which  He  has 


Salvation  of  Society.  2$  3 

created.  If  that  ruler  abuses  his  power — abuses  it  excessively; 
if  he  despises  those  whom  he  governs  ;  if  he  has  not  respect  for 
their  rights,  their  privileges,  and  their  consciences,  then  the 
balance  of  power  is  lost,  and  the  great  evil  of  political  society  is 
inaugurated.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  people,  fickle  and  in- 
constant, do  not  recognize  any  sacredness  at  all  in  their  ruler , 
if  they  do  not  recognize  the  principle  of  obedience  to  law  as  a 
divine  principle,  as  a  necessary  principle,  without  which  the 
world  cannot  live  ;  if  they  think  that  amongst  the  rights  of  man — 
of  individual  man — is  the  right  to  rise  in  rebellion  against  authority 
and  law,  the  second  great  evil  of  political  society  is  developed, 
and  the  whole  machinery  of  the  world's  government  is  broken 
to  pieces.  What  is  necessary  to  remedy  this  ?  A  power — mark 
my  words — a  power  recognized  to  be  greater  than  that  of  the 
people  or  than  that  of  the  people's  government.  A  power, 
wielded  not  only  over  the  subject,  but  over  the  monarch.  A 
power,  appealing  with  equal  force  and  equal  authority  to  him 
who  is  upon  the  throne,  to  him  who  is  at  the  head  of  armies  and 
empires,  and  to  the  meanest,  and  the  poorest,  and  the  lowest  of 
his  subjects.  What  power  has  that  been  in  history?  Look  back 
for  eighteen  hundred  years.  What  power  is  it  that  has  been 
exercised  over  baron  and  chieftain,  king  and  ruler,  no  matter 
how  dark  the  times — no  matter  how  convulsed  society  was — no 
matter  how  confused  every  element  of  government  was — no  mat- 
ter how  rude  and  barbarous  the  manners  of  men — how  willing 
they  were  to  assert  themselves  in  the  fullness  of  their  pride  and 
savage  power  in  field  and  in  council  ?  What  power  was  it  that 
was  acknowledged  supreme  by  them,  during  twelve  hundred 
years,  from  the  close  of  the  Roman  persecutions  up  till  the  out- 
break of  Protestantism  ?  What  power  was  it  that  told  the  mon- 
archs  of  the  middle  ages,  that,  if  they  imposed  an  oppressive  or 
unjust  tax  upon  the  people,  they  were  excommunicated  ? 
What  power  was  it  that  arose  to  tell  Philip  Augustus  of  France, 
in  all  the  lust  of  his  greatness  and  his  undisputed  sway,  that  if 
he  did  not  respect  the  rights  of  his  one  wife,  and  adhere  to  her 
chastely,  he  would  be  excommunicated  by  the  Church,  and 
abandoned  by  his  people  ?  What  power  was  it  that  came  to  the 
voluptuous  tyrant,  seated  on  the  Tudor's  throne  in  England, 
and  told  him  that,  unless  he  were  faithful  to  the  poor  persecuted 
woman,  Catherine  of  Arragon,  his  lawful  wife,  he  would  be  cut 


254  The  Catholic  Church  the 

off  as  a  rotten  branch,  and  cast — by  the  sentence  of  the  Church 
— into  hell-fire  ?  What  power  was  it  that  made  the  strongest 
and  most  tyrannical  of  these  rude  mediaeval  chieftains,  kings, 
and  emperors,  tremble  before  it?  Ah,  it  was  the  power  of  the 
Vatican !  It  was  the  voice  of  the  Church,  upholding  the  rights 
of  the  people  ;  sheltering  them  with  its  strong  arm,  proclaiming 
that  no  injustice  should  be  done  to  them :  that  the  rights  of 
the  poorest  man  in  the  community  were  as  sacred  as  the  rights 
of  him  who  sat  upon  the  throne ;  and,  therefore,  that  she  would 
not  stand  by  and  see  the  people  oppressed.  An  ungrateful 
world  is  this  of  ours,  to-day,  that  forgets  that  the  Catholic 
Church  was  the  power  that  inaugurated,  established,  and  ob- 
tained all  those  civic  and  municipal  rights,  all  those  rights  re- 
specting communities,  which  have  formed  the  basis  of  what  we 
call  our  modern  civilization  !  Ungrateful  age !  that  reflects  not, 
or  chooses  to  forget,  that  the  greatest  freedom  the  people  ever 
enjoyed  in  this  world,  they  enjoyed  so  long  as  they  were  under 
the  aegis  of  the  Church's  protection  ;  that  never  were  the  Ital- 
ians so  free  as  they  were  in  the  mediaeval  Republics  of  Genoa, 
Pisa,  Lucca,  and  Florence.  That  never  were  the  Spaniards  so 
free  as  when  their  Cortes,  as  the  ruling  voice  of  the  nation,  was 
heard  resounding  in  the  ears  of  their  monarchs,  and  respected  by 
them.  That  never  were  the  English  so  free  as  when  a  saint  was 
their  ruler,  or  when  an  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  with  the 
knights  of  the  realm  closed  around  him,  told  a  tyrant  they  would 
abandon  him  and  depose  him,  unless  he  gave  to  the  people  that 
charter  which  is  the  foundation  of  the  most  glorious  constitu- 
tion in  the  world.  And  thus,  I  answer,  the  Church  maintained 
the  rights  of  the  people,  whenever  those  rights  were  unjustly  in- 
vaded by  those  who  were  in  power.  But,  to  the  people,  in  their 
turn,  this  Church  has  always  preached  patience,  docility,  obe- 
dience to  law,  legitimate  redress,  when  redress  was  required. 
She  has  always  endeavored  to  calm  their  spirits,  and  to  keep 
them  back,  even  under  great  and  sore  oppression,  from  the 
remedy  which  the  world's  history  tells  us  has  always  been 
worse  than  the  disease  which  it  has  attempted  to  cure — viz.,  the 
remedy  of  rebellion  and  revolution.  Such  is  the  history  of  the 
Church's  past. 

Have  I  not  said  with  truth,  that  the  Church  is  the  salvation 
of  society  ;  that  she  formed  society  ;  that  she  created  what  we 


Salvation  of  Society.  2?j 

call  the  society  of  our  day;  and  that  if  it  had  not  been  for  her. 
a  large  percentage  of  all  that  forms  the  literature  of  our  time 
would  not  now  be  in  existence  ?  The  most  powerful  restraints, 
the  most  purifying  influences  that  have  operated  upon  society 
for  so  many  centuries,  would  not  have  sent  down  their  blessings 
to  us — blessings  that  have  been  inherited,  even  by  those  /*ho 
understood  them  so  little,  that  their  very  first  act  in  separating 
from  the  Church  was  to  lay  the  axe  at  the  very  root  of  society, 
by  depriving  the  sacrament  of  matrimony  of  its  sacramental  and 
indispensably  necessary  force.  In  like  manner  have  I  not  proved 
that,  if  there  be  a  vestige  of  freedom,  with  the  proper  assertion 
of  right,  in  the  world  to-day,  it  can  be  traced  distinctly  to  the 
generating  and  forming  action  of  the  Catholic  Church  during 
those  ages  of  faith,  when  the  world  permitted  itself  to  be 
moulded  and  fashioned  by  her  hands  ?  And,  as  she  was  in  the 
past,  so  must  she  be  in  the  future.  Shut  your  eyes  to  her 
truths — every  principle  of  human  science  will  feel  the  shock ; 
and  the  science  of  sciences  will  feel  it  first — the  science  of  the 
knowledge  of  God,  and  of  the  things  which  He  has  given  us. 
What  is  the  truth  ?  Is  it  not  a  mere  matter  of  fact,  known  by 
personal  observation  to  many  amongst  us,  that  the  Protestant 
idea  of  sin  involves  infidelity — that  is  to  say,  a  denial  of  the 
divinity  of  Christ,  of  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures,  and  of 
the  existence  of  God  ?  What  is  the  Protestant  idea  of  the  sin- 
ner? We  have  it,  for  instance,  in  their  own  description.  There 
is,  for  instance,  the  account  of  the  Elder's  deathbed.  His  son 
was  a  sinner.  He  comes  to  the  father's  bedside.  He  is  broken 
with  grief,  seeing  that  his  father  is  dying  before  his  eyes.  The 
father  seizes  the  opportunity  to  remind  the  erring  son,  Re- 
member that  Christ  died  for  our  sins,  and  that  Christ  was  the 
Son  of  God.  He  begins  then  to  teach  what  a  Catholic  would 
consider  the  very  first  elements  of  the  catechism.  But  to  him 
they  were  the  conclusions  of  a  long  life  of  study,  and  he  has 
arrived  now,  at  the  end  of  his  days,  at  the  very  point  at  which 
the  little  Catholic  child  starts  when  he  is  seven  years  of  age.  Now, 
in  the  Catholic  Church,  these  things,  which  are  the  result  of 
careful  inquiry,  hard  study,  the  conclusions  of  years,  perhaps, 
being  admitted  as  first  principles — the  time  which  is  lost  by  the 
Protestant  in  arriving  at  these  principles,  is  employed  by  the 
Catholic  in  applying  them  to  the  conduct  and  the  actions  of  his 


256  The  Catholh    Chu>ch  the 

daily  life — rtfi  avoiding  this  danger  or  that,  repenting  of  this  sin 
or  that,  praying  against  this  evil  or  that — and  so  on.  Shut  your 
eyes  to  the  truths  of  Catholic  teaching,  and  the  divine  Scriptures 
themselves,  on  which  you  fancy,  perhaps,  that  you  are  building 
up  your  religion,  are  shaken  from  their  pedestal  of  a  sure  defini- 
tion, and  nothing  remains  but  her  reassuring  power — even  to 
the  inspiration  of  God's  written  word.  Is  not  this  true  ?  Where, 
during  the  fifteen  hundred  years  that  preceded  Protestantism — 
where  do  we  read  of  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  being 
called  in  question?  Where  do  we  read  of  any  theologian  omit- 
ting this  phrase,  leaving  out  that  sentence,  because  it  did 
not  tally  with  his  particular  views?  He, knew  that  he 
might  as  well  seek  to  tie  up  the  hands  of  God  as  to 
change  one  iota  or  syllable  of  God's  revealed  truth.  But 
what  do  we  see  during  the  last  three  hundred  years  ?  Luther 
began  by  rejecting  the  Epistle  of  St.  James,  calling  it  "  An  epistle 
of  straw,"  because  there  were  certain  doctrines  there  that  did 
not  suit  him.  From  his  time,  every  Protestant  theologian  has 
found  fault  with  this  passage  or  that  of  Scripture,  as  if  it  was  a 
thing  that  could  be  changed  and  turned  and  forced  and  shaped 
to  answer  this  purpose  or  that ;  as  if  the  word  of  God  could  be 
made  to  veer  about,  north,  east,  south,  and  west — according  to 
human  wishes  ;  until  at  length,  in  our  own  day,  they  have  un- 
dertaken a  new  version  of  the  Scriptures  altogether ;  and  this 
is  quietly  going  on  in  one  great  section  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, whilst  another  great  section  of  the  Church  of  England 
disputes  its  authority  altogether,  and  tells  you  that  the  doc- 
trinal part  of  it  is  only  a  rule  to  guide,  and  that  the  historical 
part  of  it  is  nothing  more  than  a  myth,  like  the  history  of  the 
ancient  Paganism  of  Greece  and  of  Rome  !  They  discard  the 
Church's  action  upon  the  morality  of  society;  tell  her  that 
they  do  not  believe  her  when  she  says,  "Accursed  is  the  man  or 
woman  that  puts  a  divorce  into  his  or  her  partner's  hand  ;"  tell 
her  that  they  do  not  believe  her  when  she  says,  "  No  matter 
what  the  conduct  of  either  party  is,  I  cannot  break  the  bond 
that  God  has  made— no  matter  what*  may  be  the  difference  of 
disposition — no  matter  what  the  weariness  that  springs  from  the 
union  ;  I  cannot  dissolve  it.  I  cannot  alter  it."  If  you  dissolve 
it,  I  ask  you  in  all  earnestness  to  what  you  reduce  yourselves  ? 
To  what  does  the  married  woman  reduce  herself?     She  becomes 


Salvation  of  Society.  257 

— (I  blush  to  say  it) — she  becomes  a  creature  living  under  the 
sufferance  and  under  the  caprices  of  her  husband.  You  know 
how  easy  it  is  to  trump  up  an  accusation !  You  have  but  tc 
defame  that  which  is  so  delicate  and  so  tender  as  a  woman's 
name ;  a  gentle  and  a  tender  and  a  pure  woman's  good  name  is 
tainted  and  destroyed  by  a  breath.  No  matter  how  unfounded 
the  calumny  or  the  slander,  how  easy  it  is  first  to  defame  and 
then  to  destroy  it !  At  the  time  when  the  Protestant  Church 
was  called  upon  by  the  people  in  England  to  admit  the  lawful- 
ness of  divorce,  the  Catholic  Church  raised  up  her  voice  in  de- 
fence of  truth,  and  warned  England  that  she  was  going  into  a 
deeper  abyss — warned  the  people  that  they  were  going  to  de- 
stroy whatever  sanctity  of  society  remained  amongst  them — 
warned  them  that  there  was  an  anathema  upon  the  measure — 
upon  those  who  proposed  it — upon  those  who  aided  it.  Is  it 
not  strange  that  the  womanhood  of  the  world  does  not  fly  to 
the  Catholic  Church  for  protection  of  their  honor  and  dignity? 
Would  it  not  be  much  better  for  those  sturdy  females  who  are 
looking  for  woman's  rights,  claiming  the  suffrage,  and  going 
about  the  country  lecturing,  to  turn  their  attention  to  the  infa- 
mous law  of  divorce,  and  if  they  will  be  agitators,  to  agitate 
for  its  abolition  ? 

Such  is  the  Church's  action  on  the  morale  of  society.  Tell 
her  to  shut  up  her  confessionals ;  tell  her  that  her  priests, 
sitting  in  those  tribunals,  are  blasphemous  usurpers  of  a  power 
that  God  has  never  given  to  man.  What  follows  from  this  ? 
Oh,  my  friends,  do  you  think  that  you,  or  that  any  of  you  would 
be  better  men  if  you  were  absolved  to-morrow  from  all  obliga- 
tion of  ever  going  to  confession  again  ?  Do  you  think  you 
would  draw  nearer  to  God?  Would  we  look  more  sharply  after 
ourselves?  Do  you  not  think  that  even  those  very  human 
agencies — the  humiliation,  the  painstaking  of  preparation,  the 
violent  effort  to  get  out  whatever  we  must  confess — do  you  not 
think  all  these  things  are  a  great  restraint  upon  a  man,  and  that 
they  help  to  keep  him  from  sinning,  independent  altogether  of 
the  higher  argument  of  an  offended  God — of  the  crucified 
Lord  bleeding  again  at  the  sight  of  our  sins.  Most  assuredly 
they  are.  Most  assuredly  that  man  will  endeavor  to  serve  God 
with  greater  purity,  with  greater  carefulness — will  endeavor  to 
remember  tne  precept  of  the  Saviour:  "  You  must  watch  and 

17 


2$S  The  Catholic  Church  the 

pray  that  you  may  not  enter  into  temptation  " — who  is  called 
upon  from  time  to  time  to  sweep  the  chambers  of  his  own. 
soul,  to  wash  and  purify  every  corner  of  his  own  heart,  to  ana- 
lyze his  motives,  call  himself  to  account,  even  for  his  thoughts 
and  words — examine  his  relations  in  regard  to  honesty,  in  re- 
gard to  charity  with  his  neighbor — examine  himself  how  he 
fulfils  his  duties  as  a  father,  or  as  a  husband,  as  the  case  may 
be.  The  man  who  is  obliged  to  do  this,  is  more  likely  to  serve 
God  in  purity  and  watchfulness  than  the  man  who  never,  from 
the  cradle  to  the  grave,  is  obliged  to  ask  himself,  "  How  do  I 
stand  with  God  ?"  Remove  this  action  of  the  Church  upon  the 
good  conduct  of  society,  and  then  you  will  have,  indeed,  the 
work  which  was  accomplished,  and  which  is  reaping  its  fulfil- 
ment to-day — the  work  of  the  so-called  great  Reformer,  Martin 
Luther,  who  has  brought  it  to  this  pass,  that  the  world  itself  is 
groaning  under  the  weight  of  its  own  iniquity ;  and  society 
rises  up  and  exclaims  that  its  very  heart  within  it  is  rotted  by 
social  evil. 

Disturb  the  action  of  the  Church  upon  political  society,  and 
what  guarantee  have  you  for  the  future  ?  You  may  see  from 
the  past  what  is  to  be  in  the  future;  for,  when  Luther  broached 
his  so-called  "Reformation,"  the  principle  upon  which  he  went 
was  that  the  Catholic  Church  had  no  business  to  be  an  univer- 
sally Catholic  body ;  that  she  should  break  herself  up  into  na- 
tional churches— the  Church  of  Germany,  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, the  Church  of  France,  the  Church  of  America,  and  so  on. 
And,  in  fact,  Protestantism  to  this  day  in  England  is  called  the 
Church  of  England.  The  necessary  consequence  of  this  was, 
that  the  head  of  the  State  became  also  the  head  of  the  Church ; 
the  essential  Catholic  bond  of  the  Church,  which  is  com- 
munion with  the  pope,  her  head,  being  broken  and  dissolved. 
The  two  powers  were  concentrated  in  him — one  as  Gov- 
ernor—head of  the  State,  the  other  as  Ruler  and  head  of 
the  national  Church.  He  was  to  become  King  over  the  con- 
sciences of  the  people,  as  well  as  Ruler  of  their  external  public 
actions.  He  was  to  make  laws  for  the  soul  as  well  as  for  the 
body.  He  was  to  tell  them  what  they  were  to  believe  and  how 
they  were  to  pray,  as  well  as  to  tell  them  their  duties  as  citi- 
zens. He  was  to  lead  them  to  heaven !  The  man  who  led  his 
armies  in  the  battle-field  was  to  persuade  his  people  that  the 


Salvafioit  of  Society.  259 

way  to  heaven  lay  through  rapine  and  through  blood  !  But  so 
it  was.  And.  strange  to  say,  in  every  nation  in  Europe  that 
accepted  Protestantism,  the  monarch  became  a  tyrant  at  once. 
The  greatest  tyrant  that  ever  governed  England  was  the  man 
who  introduced  Protestantism.  So  long  as  Henry  VIII. 
was  a  Catholic — although  he  was  a  man  of  terrible  passions — 
still,  the  Church,  reminding  him  of  his  soul,  bringing  him  occa- 
sionally to  the  confessional,  trying  to  shake  him  out  of  his  iniqui- 
ties— had  some  control  over  him ;  and  he  conquered  his  pas- 
sions, and  kept  himself  honorable  and  pure.  The  moment  that 
this  man  cast  off  his  allegiance  to  the  Church — the  very  day  he 
proclaimed  that  he  was  emancipated  from  the  pope,  and  did  not 
believe  in  the  pope  or  acknowledge  him  any  more — that  very 
day  he  turns  to  Anne  Boleyn,  takes  and  proclaims  her  his  wife 
— Catharine,  his  rightful  wife,  still  living ;  and  in  a  few  days, 
when  his  heart  grew  tired  of  Anne,  and  his  eyes  were  attracted 
by  some  other  beauty,  he  sent  Anne  to  the  block,  and  had  her 
head  cut  off — and  he  took  another  lady  in  her  place  ;  and,  in  a 
short  time,  he  cut  off  her  head,  also.  And  so,  Gustavus  Vasa, 
of  Sweden,  when  he  became  a  Protestant,  at  once  assumed  and 
became  the  head  of  an  absolute  monarchy.  The  very  kings  of 
the  Catholic  countries  imitated  their  Protestant  brethren  in  this 
respect,  for  we  find  the  Catholic  monarchs  of  Spain  cutting  off 
the  ancient  privileges  of  the  people  in  the  Cortes,  saying :  "  I 
am  the  State,  and  every  man  must  obey!"  It  is  quite  natural. 
The  more  power  you  give  into  a  man's  hands  the  more  absolute 
he  becomes.  The  more  you  concentrate  in  him  the  spiritual  as 
well  as  the  temporal  power,  the  more  audaciously  will  he  exer- 
cise both  temporal  and  spiritual  power,  and  the  more  likely  is  it 
that  you  are  building  up  in  that  man  a  tyrant — and  a  merciless 
tyrant — to  oppress  you.  From  the  day  that  society  emancipat- 
ed itself  by  Protestantism  from  the  action  of  the  Church,  revo- 
lution, rebellion,  uprising  against  authority  became  the  order  of 
the  day ;  until  at  length  the  world  is  overrun  with  secret  so- 
cieties, which  swear  eternal  enmity  to  the  altar  and  to  the  throne. 
And  so,  my  dear  friends,  we  see  that  we  cannot  move  with- 
out the  Church  of  God — that  nations  may  go  on  for  a  time, 
and  may  be  upheld  by  material  prosperity;  but  without  a  surer 
basis  they  will  certainly  be  overthrown.  The  moments  are 
coming,  and  coming  rapidly,  when  all  the  society  of  this  world 


26o         The  Catholic  Church  the  Salvation  of  Society. 

that  wishes  to  be  saved,  will  have  to  cry  out  with  a  mighty  voice 
to  the  Catholic  Church.  Persecuted,  despised,  to-day,  she  will 
yet  come  to  us  with  her  light  of  truth — with  her  sanctifying  in- 
fluences— with  her  glorious  dominion  over  king  and  subject,  to 
save  them  from  the  ruin  which  they  have  brought  upon  their 
own  heads.  That  will  be  a  day  of  grace  for  man.  It  will  be 
the  day  of  the  world's  necessity.  And  when  that  day  comes— 
and  I  behold  it  now  in  my  mental  vision,  this  uprising  of  the 
whole  world  in  the  hands  of  the  Church — it  will  bring  peace, 
security,  holiness,  and  joy  to  society.  I  see  thee,  O  glorious 
spouse  of  Christ !  O  mother  Church,  I  see  thee  seated  once 
more,  in  the  councils  of  the  nations,  guiding  them  with  a  di- 
vinely infused  light — animating  them  with  thy  spirit  of  justice. 
I  see  thee,  O  mother,  as  of  old  I  saw  upon  the  seven  hills  a  glori- 
ous city  arise  out  of  the  ruins  of  the  Goth  and  Visigoth  and  Van- 
dal ;  so  out  of  the  men  of  this  day — relapsing  into  chaos  through 
neglect  of  thee — do  I  behold  thee  forming  the  glorious  city 
that  shall  be  ;  a  society  in  which  men  shall  be  loyal  and  brave, 
truthful,  pure,  and  holy ;  a  city  in  which  the  people  shall  grow 
up  formed  by  thee  for  God  ;  a  city  in  which  all  men,  governors 
and  governed,  will  admit  the  supremacy  of  law,  the  sanctity  of 
principle,  the  omnipotence  of  justice !  And,  O,  Mother,  in  the 
day  when  that  retribution  comes — in  that  day  of  the  world's 
necessity— the  triple  crown  shall  shine  again  upon  the  brows  of 
thy  chief,  Peter's  successor,  and  the  Vicar  of  Christ ;  the  triple 
crown,  the  most  ancient  and  the  holiest  in  the  world ;  and  the 
Prince  of  Peace  will  extend  his  sceptre  over  the  nations;  and 
every  man  will  rejoice  as  in  a  new  life  I 


THE  IMMACULATE  CONCEPTION 


[Sermon  delivered  May  3d,  in  the  Church  of  St.  Vincent  Ferrer.J 
"  Thou  art  all  fair,  O  my  beloved,  and  there  is  no  spot  or  slightest  stain  in  thee  " 

HESE  words  are  found  in  the  Canticles  of  Solomon, 
and  the  holy  Catholic  Church  applies  them  to  the 
soul  and  body  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary.  In  the 
Scriptures  the  king  addresses  his  spouse  by  these 
words.  The  king  represents  no  other  than  the  Almighty  God, 
and  surely,  if  among  all  the  daughters  of  men,  we  ask  ourselves, 
and  who  was  the  spouse  of  the  Almighty  God  ?  we  must  imme- 
diately answer  the  Virgin  Mother,  who  brought  forth  the  eternal 
God,  made  man.  Wherever,  therefore,  the  Scriptures  and  in- 
spired writings  of  the  old  law  speak  words  of  love,  and  denote 
attributes  belonging  to  a  spouse,  these  are  directly  applicable 
to  the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary.  Now,  among  the  many  gifts  and 
graces  which  the  prophet  beheld  in  her,  and  upon  which  he  con- 
gratulates her,  are  these :  he  tells  us  that  he  saw  her  at  the 
king's  right  hand  in  golden  garb,  surrounded  with  variety;  that 
everything  of  beauty  and  loveliness  was  upon  her;  but,  in  ad- 
dition to  this,  he  tells  us  that  a  vision  of  such  perfect  purity, 
such  perfect  immaculateness  rose  before  his  eyes,  that,  filled 
vvith  the  Holy  Ghost  and  the  joy  of  God,  he  exclaimed,  "  Thou 
art  fair,  O  my  beloved,  and  there  is  no  spot  or  slightest  stain  in 
Ihee." 

Behold,  then,  dearly  beloved,  the  first  great  grace  that  the 
Virgin  of  Virgins  received  at  the  first  moment  of  her  existence. 
When  we  reflect  upon  the  relationship  which  the  incarnation  of 
our  divine  Lord  established  between  the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary  and 
the  Almighty  God — namely,  that  she  should  be  the  Mother  of 


262  The  Immaculate  Conception. 

God,  that  He,  taking  his  sacred  humanity  from  her,  should  be 
united  to  her  so  as  to  be  the  flesh  of  her  flesh  and  the  bone  of 
her  bone— that  He  was  to  be  altogether  hers,  as  the  child  belongs 
to  the  mother  at  birth — and  in  this  new  relation  of  His  humanity 
He  was  not  to  suffer  the  slightest  diminution  of  His  own  infinite 
sanctity  which  belonged  to  Him  as  God — when  we  reflect  upon 
all  this,  and  see  the  awful  proximity  in  which  a  creature  is 
brought  to  Almighty  God  in  this  mystery  of  man's  redemption, 
the  very  first  thought  that  strikes  the  mind  is,  I  know  God  must 
have  forfeited  something  of  His  holiness,  or  else  the  creature 
that  He  selected  for  His  mother  must  have  been  all  pure,  all 
holy,  and  so  fit  to  be  the  Mother  of  God — either  God  must  have 
forfeited  some  of  His  holiness  coming  to  one  personally  a  sinner, 
taking  tainted  blood,  the  nature  that  belonged  to  us  that  He 
took  in  her,  that  which  was  a  broken,  a  disfigured,  and  de- 
formed nature,  tainted  with  sin,  and  steeped,  if  you  will,  in  sin 
— for  what,  after  all,  is  the  record  of  man's  history  but  a  record 
of  sin— or  Mary  must  have  been  sinless.  But  if  the  Almighty 
God  took  that  nature  from  one  who  bore  in  her  own  blood  the 
personal  taint  of  the  universal  sin,  we  must  conclude  that  the 
Almighty  God  thereby  compromised  His  own  infinite  holiness — 
nay,  that  He  did  more  than  this,  that  He  contradicted  His  own 
word,  for  the  word  of  God  is,  that  nothing  defiled,  nothing 
tainted,  shall  come  near  to  Almighty  God.  The  soul  that  de- 
parts from  this  world  with  the  slightest  taint  of  sin  upon  it  must 
pay  to  the  last  farthing,  and  purge  itself  unto  perfect  purity  be- 
fore it  can  catch  a  glimpse  of  God  in  heaven.  And  if  this 
immaculateness  and  purity  be  necessary  in  order  even  to  behold 
God,  Oh,  think  of  the  purity,  then,  of  the  immaculateness,  that 
must  have  been  necessary  in  order  not  only  to  behold  God,  but 
to  take  Him  into  her  bosom,  to  give  Him  the  very  human  life 
that  He  lived,  to  give  Him  the  very  nature  that  He  took,  and 
united  to  Himself  in  the  unity  of  His  own  divine  person — to 
give  Him  that  humanity  that  He  literally  made  Himself.  What 
infinite  purity,  what  perfect  innocence  and  immaculateness  did 
these  involve,  unless,  indeed,  we  are  willing  to  conclude  that 
the  Almighty  God  came  into  personal  contact  with  the  sinner, 
and  so  allowed  something  not  undefiled  to  come  into  contact 
with  Him.  But  no  ;  the  mystery  which  brought  sd  much  suffer- 
ing, so  much  humiliation,  so  much  sadness  and  sorrow  to  the 


The  Immaculate  Conception.  263 

eternal  So.  of  God,  brought  Him  no  compromise  with  sin, 
brought  Him  no  defilement  of  His  own  infinite  sanctity,  not  in 
the  least  lowering  Him  from  that  standard  of  infinite  holiness 
which  is  His  essence  and  nature  as  God.  And,  therefore,  it  was 
necessary  that,  coming  to  redeem  a  sinful  race,  the  individual  of 
that  race  from  whom  He  took  His  most  sacred  humanity,  should 
be  perfectly  pure  and  immaculate.  More  than  this,  we  know  that 
the  Almighty  God  never  yet  called  any  creature  to  any  dignity  or 
to  any  office  without  bestowing  upon  that  creature  graces  com- 
mensurate with  the  greatness,  the  magnificence,  and  the  duties 
which  he  imposed  upon  him.  Hence  it  is  that  we  find  when  he 
was  about  to  create  the  Prophet  Jeremiah,  when  he  was  about 
to  make  him  a  prophet,  to  put  his  divine  inspiration  into  his 
mind,  when  he  was  about  to  send  this  man  to  announce  his 
vengeance  to  the  people,  the  Scriptures  expressly  tell  us  that  he 
sanctified  that  man  in  his  mother's  womb  before  he  was  born, 
and  that  the  infant  prophet  came  into  this  world  without  the 
slightest  taint  of  sin.  Hear  the  words  of  Scripture :  "  The 
word  of  the  Lord  came  to  me,  saying,  Before  I  formed  thee  in 
thy  mother's  womb  I  knew  thee ;  and  before  thou  earnest  forth 
out  of  the  womb  I  sanctified  thee  and  made  thee  a  prophet  unto 
the  nations."  So,  in  like  manner,  when  the  Almighty  God  created 
a  man  who  was  to  arrive  at  the  highest  dignity  of  the  prophets 
— namely,  not  only  to  proclaim  the  coming  of  God,  but  to 
point  out  God  amongst  men  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ — 
John  the  Baptist,  created  for  this  high  and  holy  purpose — 
created  to  be  amongst  men  what  Gabriel  the  archangel  was  to 
Mary — namely,  the  revealer  of  the  divine  counsels,  God  sanc- 
tified him  in  his  mother's  womb,  and  John  the  Baptist  was  born 
without  sin.  If  the  Almighty  God  sanctifies  a  man  before  his 
birth,  anticipates  the  sacramental  regeneration  of  circumcision, 
sanctifies  him  before  the  sacrament,  as  in  the  case  of  Jeremiah 
and  John  the  Baptist,  simply  because  that  man  was  called  to 
the  office  of  proclaiming  the  word  of  God,  Oh,  dearly  beloved, 
surely  there  must  have  been  some  distinctive  sanctity,  some 
especial  grace  in  reserve  for  Mary,  as  much  higher  than  the 
grace  of  the  prophet  or  of  the  prevision  of  the  Baptist,  as 
Mary's  office  transcends  theirs.  Jeremiah  had  but  to  announce 
the  word  of  God  revealed  to  him.  Mary  it  was  who  was  to 
bring  forth  the  word  of  God  incarnate  in  her  immaculate  womb, 


264  The  Immaculate  Conception. 

John  the  Baptist  was  to  point  Him  out  and  say,  "  Behold  the 
Lamb  of  God."  Mary  was  to  hold  Him  in  her  arms  and  say  to 
the  world,  "  This  Lamb  of  God,  who  is  to  save  all  mankind,  is 
my  Son."  And  therefore  it  is,  that  as  her  office  exceeded  that 
of  prophet,  preacher,  and  precursor,  as  her  dignity  so  far  tran- 
scended anything  that  heaven  and  earth  could  ever  know  or 
imagine  in  a  creature,  so  the  Almighty  God  reserved  her  alone 
amongst  all  that  He  created  upon  this  earth,  that  she  should  be 
conceived,  as  well  as  born,  without  sin — that  that  stream  of  sin 
which  touched  us  all,  and  in  its  touch  defiled  us,  should  never 
come  near  and  soil  the  immaculate  Mary — that  that  sin  which 
has  mixed  itself  up  in  our  blood  in  Adam,  and,  upon  the  stream 
of  that  blood,  found  its  way  into  the  heart-veins  of  every  child 
of  this  earth,  could  never  flow  in  the  immaculate  veins  that 
furnished  to  JesuS  Christ  the  blood  in  which  He  washed  away 
the  world's  sin.  Therefore  the  Almighty  God  for  this  took 
thought  and  forethought  from  all  eternity.  "  The  Lord  possessed 
me  in  the  beginning  of  his  ways,  before  he  made  anything  from 
the  beginning;"  that  is  to  say,  in  the  divine  and  eternal  counsels 
of  the  Almighty  God,  Mary  arose  in  all  the  splendor,  in  all  the 
immaculate  whiteness  of  her  sanctity  and  purity,  the  first,  the 
grandest,  and  the  greatest  of  all  the  designs  of  the  eternal 
wisdom  of  God,  because  in  her  was  to  be  accomplished  the 
mystery  of  mysteries,  the  mystery  that  was  hidden  from  ages 
with  Christ  in  God — namely,  the  incarnation  of  the  eternal 
Word.  Thus  did  the  prophet  behold  her  as  she  shone  forth  in 
the  eternal  counsels  of  God,  when  he  looked  up  in  that  inspired 
moment  at  Patmos,  and  saw  the  heavens  opened  and  all  the 
glories  of  God  revealed,  there  in  the  midst  of  the  choirs  of 
God's  angels,  there  in  the  full  blaze  and  effulgence  of  the  light 
descending  from  the  Father  of  Light,  and  exclaimed,  "  I  be- 
leld,  and  lo !  a  great  sign  appeared  in  heaven — a  woman 
clothed  with  the  sun,  and  the  moon  beneath  her  feet,  and  on 
her  head  a  crown  of  twelve  stars."  Who  was  this  woman  ? 
Mark  what  follows,  and  you  will  know  for  yourselves.  "  And 
she  brought  forth  a  man-child  who  was  to  rule  all  nations  with 
an  iron  rod ;  and  her  son  was  taken  up  to  God  and  to  His 
throne."  Whom  can  she  be  but  the  woman  that  brought  forth 
that  man-child,  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God  ?  Thus  did  the 
prophet  behold  her,  the  sign  and  promise  of  victory  and  of 


The  Immaculate  Conception.  265 

glory.  And  how  significant  are  the  mysterious  words  which 
follow,  "  and  the  serpent  cast  out  of  his  mouth  after  the  woman 
water,  as  it  were  a  river,  that  he  might  cause  her  to  be  carried 
away  by  the  river.  And  the  earth  helped  the  woman,  and  the 
earth  opened  her  mouth  and  swallowed  up  the  river  which  the 
dragon  cast  out  of  his  mouth."  The  earth  indeed  swallowed  up 
these  fatal  waters.  The  whole  world  was  saturated  with  them, 
but  they  never  touched  the  woman.  And  we  behold  in  this 
mystery  the  immaculate  conception,  for  I  can  gall  it  nothing 
else  than  a  mystery  of  Divine  grace,  and  which  is  a  triple  tri- 
umph, namely,  the  triumph  of  God,  the  triumph  of  human 
nature,  and  Mary's  own  triumph  and  glory.  Consider  these 
things,  my  friends.  First  of  all,  let  us  consider  God's  triumph 
in  Mary.  Recollect,  dearly  beloved,  the  circumstances  that 
attended  the  fall  and  the  sin  of  man.  God  made  us  in  a  perfect 
nature,  perfect  in  its  organization,  perfect  in  its  beautiful  har- 
mony, perfect  in  its  origin,  perfect  in  its  eternal  destiny,  perfect 
in  the  freedom  and  the  glory  with  which  he  crowned  the  unfallen 
man.  "  Thou  hast  made  him  little  less  than  the  angels,  thou 
hast  crowned  him  with  honor  and  glory."  Then  came  sin  into 
this  world,  and  spoiled  the  beautiful  work  of  God.  All  the  fair- 
est work  of  God  was  destroyed  by  Adam's  sin.  The  integrity 
of  our  nature  was  injured.  The  harmony  of  our  creation  was 
disturbed.  Bad  passions  and  evil  inclinations  were  let  loose, 
and  the  soul,  with  its  spiritual  aspirations,  its  pure  love,  and  un- 
shackled freedom,  became  their  slave.  But  although  the  devil 
triumphed  over  God  in  thus  breaking,  destroying,  defiling  and 
spoiling  God's  work  in  man,  yet  his  triumph  was  not  perfect. 
God  wished  still  to  vindicate  Himself.  God  would  not  give  His 
enemy  a  total  and  entire  triumph  over  Him  in  the  destruction 
and  spoiling  of  His  work.  God  took  Mary  aside  and  said,  For 
her  let  there  be  no  sin  ;  for  her  let  there  be  no  soiling  influence, 
for  her  no  taint.  He  took  her,  in  His  eternal  designs,  into  the 
bosom  of  His  own  infinite  sanctity  and  omnipotent  power,  and 
whilst  all  our  nature  was  destroyed,  in  her  it  retained  its  original 
purity,  integrity,  and  beauty,  in  the  one  soul  and  body  of  the 
Blessed  Virgin  Mary.  Thus  we  see  the  triumph  of  God  ;  and 
here,  it  is  worthy  of  remark,  dearly  beloved,  that  although  in 
Scripture  we  often  read  of  God's  designs  being  frustrated,  ot 
God's  work  being  overturned  and  spoiled  by  sin  or  some  evil 


266  The  Immaculate  Conception. 

agency — yet  it  is  never  totally  spoiled.  God  never  gives  a  com 
plete  triumph  to  His  enemy.  Thus,  for  instance,  in  the  begin- 
ning, at  the  time  of  the  deluge,  all  mankind  were  steeped  in  sin, 
and  God,  looking  down  from  heaven,  said  :  "  I  am  sorry  that  I 
created  this  race,  for  My  spirit  is  no  longer  among  them."  Yet, 
even  then  did  the  Almighty  God  reserve  to  Himself  Noah  and 
his  children,  and  out  of  the  whole  race  of  mankind  these  were 
saved  in  purity  and  in  sanctity,  that  God  might  not  be  utterly 
conquered  by  the  devil.  Again,  when  the  Almighty  God  pre- 
pared to  rain  down  fire  upon  Sodom,  He  could  not  find  ten  holy 
men  in  the  land.  And  yet,  in  the  universal  corruption,  Lot  and 
his  family  were  saved.  They  were  holy,  where  all  else  was 
unholy,  and  they  preserved  God  in  their  hearts.  Again,  when 
the  tribe  of  Benjamin  was  destroyed  from  amongst  the  other 
tribes  of  Israel,  a  few  were  saved,  that  God's  work  might  not  be 
utterly  destroyed.  And  so  the  prophet,  speaking  of  the  Jewish 
people,  says  :  "  If  the  children  of  Israel  were  as  the  sands  of  the 
sea,  yet  a  remnant  shall  be  saved." 

Thus  it  is  that  we  find,  invariably,  that  the  Almighty  God 
allows,  in  His  wisdom  and  in  His  vengeance,  the  devil  to  go  to 
a  certain  point,  and  to  revel  in  destruction  so  far ;  but  yet,  sud- 
denly He  stays  him.  God  stretches  out  His  hand,  and  says  to 
him :  "  Thus  far  shalt  thou  go,  and  no  farther."  This  ought  to  be 
a  great  lesson  to  us  in  this  our  day.  True,  it  seems  to  us  in  this 
our  day  that  this  devil  of  pride,  this  devil  of  infidelity,  this  devil 
of  revolution,  this  devil  of  self-assertion,  is  let  loose  among  the 
nations  to  play  riot  with  the  Church  of  God,  to  strike  the  crown 
from  off  the  Pontiff's  head,  to  pervert  the  ancient,  faithful  nation 
which  has  upheld  him  for  centuries  and  make  it  the  bitterest 
enemy  of  the  Church,  and  to  deprive  the  Head  of  the  Church, 
for  a  time,  of  power.  To-day,  this  devil  runs  riot  in  the  world, 
shutting  up  Catholic  Churches,  expelling  Jesuits,  tainting  the 
fountains  of  education,  loosening  the  sacred  bonds  of  marriage 
and  of  society,  blaspheming  Jesus  Christ  it  the  Eucharist,  per- 
secuting His  priests  and  bishops  and  represe  itatives  upon  earth. 
But  we  know  that,  at  some  moment  or  othei,  and  when  we  least 
expect  it — perhaps  right  in  the  mid  career  of  its  apparent  glory— 
the  terrible,  invisible  hand  will  be  put  forth,  and  a  voice  will  be 
heard,  "  No  more — back !  So  far,  in  my  vengeance,  and  so  far, 
even  in  my  mercy,  I  have  allowed  you.  Back !  Let  there  be 
peace." 


The  Immaculate  Conception.  267 

And  so  the  Almighty  God  triumphed  even  in  the  fall  of 
Adam,  which  brought  death  into  the  world,  polluted  the  blood, 
stirred  up  the  passions,  destroyed  the  equilibrium  and  harmony 
of  human  nature,  and  caused  the  very  beasts  of  the  forests  to 
assume  the  savageness  that  they  have  to  this  day.  All  nature 
was  tainted  except  that  of  Mary.  Her,  the  hand  of  the  omni- 
potent Lord  held  high  above  all  attacks  and  attempts  of  her 
enemies,  and  in  Mary  God  has  triumphed,  in  that  in  her  His 
glory  has  been  preserved,  she  never  having  been  tainted  with  or 
spoiled  by  sin.  It  is,  also,  the  triumph  of  our  nature.  My 
friends,  if  Mary  had  not  been  conceived  without  sin,  we  might 
have  been  redeemed,  we  might  have  saved  our  souls,  as  we  hope 
to  do  now  ;  we  might  have  gone  up  into  the  glory  of  heaven ; 
but  a  perfect  human  being  we  never  could  have  seen.  Heaven 
would  be  a  congregation  of  penitents  if  Mary  were  not  there — 
tears  upon  their  faces — but  no  tear  upon  thine,  O  Immaculate 
Mother !  The  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  upon  the  hands  of  all — no 
blood  of  Thy  divine  Son  upon  Thy  immaculate  hands,  Oh  Mary! 
The  unfallen  man  would  have  been  a  thing  of  the  past.  Even 
in  heaven,  the  representative  of  what  God  had  made  in  Adam 
would  be  wanting  if  Mary  were  not  there,  and,  therefore,  our 
nature  has  triumphed  in  her.  We  may  all  look  up  to  her  in 
heaven,  we  may  all  contemplate  her,  and  we  may  glorify  our 
humanity  in  Mary  without  the  slightest  fear  of  pride  or  blas- 
phemy against  God,  because  the  humanity  that  is  in  Mary,  be- 
ing conceived  without  sin,  is  worthy  of  all  honor  and  of  all 
glory.  I  will  not  compare  her  in  her  immaculate  conception 
with  sinners ;  I  will  compare  her  with  the  saints,  and  behold 
how  she  towers  above  them.  All  sanctity,  whether  it  be  wrought 
out  by  years  of  penance,  by  fasting  and  mortification,  by  labo- 
rious efforts  for  the  conversion  of  souls,  by  utter  consecration 
and  sacrifice  to  God,  by  martyrdom,  by  any  form  of  sanctity, 
attains  to  but  one  thing,  and  that  is  perfect  sinlessness  and 
perfect  purity  of  soul.  Perfect  sinlessness  and  perfect  purity  of 
soul  mean  perfect  union  by  the  highest  form  of  divine  love  with 
Almighty  God.  God  so  loves  us,  dearly  beloved,  that  He  wishes 
tc  have  us  all  together  united  to  Him  by  that  intimate  union 
of  the  strongest  and  most  ardent  love.  How  is  it  that  that 
union  is  not  effected?  Because  of  some  little  imperfection, 
some  little  sinfulness,  some  little  crookedness  in  our  souls,  which 


268  The  Immaculate  Conception. 

keeps  us  from  that  perfect  union  of  love  with  God.  Now,  th< 
aim  of  all  the  saints  is  to  attain  to  that  ardent  and  perfect  union 
with  God  by  purging  from  their  souls,  from  their  bodies,  from 
their  affections,  and  fiom  their  senses,  every  vestige  or  inclination 
or  even  temptation  to  sin.  When  they  have  attained  to  that, 
God  crowns  their  sinlessness  with  a  perfect  union  of  love,  and 
they  have  attained  to  the  acme  or  summit  of  their  desires.  It 
is  here — precisely  where  all  the  saints  have  ended — here,  pre- 
cisely where  all  the  saints,  tired  and  fatigued  with  the  labors  of 
the  upward  journey,  knelt  down  in  blessed  rest  on  the  summit 
of  Christian  perfection — that  Mary's  sanctity  begins  ;  for  in  her 
immaculate  conception,  she  was  conceived  without  sin — no 
thought  or  shadow  of  thought  to  sin  allied  was  ever  allowed  to 
fall  upon  the  pure  sunshine  of  her  soul.  No  temptation  to  sin 
was  ever  allowed  to  quicken  the  pulsations  of  her  sacred  heart. 
Nothing  of  sin  was  ever  allowed  to  approach  her.  Entrenched 
in  the  perfect  sinlessness  of  her  immaculate  conception,  the  mo- 
ment she  was  conceived,  she  surpassed  in  sanctity — that  is  to 
say,  in  perfect  sinlessness,  and,  consequently,  in  perfect  union 
of  love  with  God — all  of  the  saints  and  angels  in  heaven.  This 
is  the  meaning  of  the  words  in  Scripture,  where  the  prophet 
says:  "Wisdom  built  unto  itself  a  house,  and  the  foundation 
thereof  is  laid  upon  the  summits  of  the  holy  mountain.  The 
Lord  loveth  the  threshold  of  Sion  more  than  the  palaces  and 
tabernacles  of  Judah."  You  know  that  every  word  of  Scrip- 
ture has  a  deep  and  God-like  meaning.  What  meaning  can 
these  words  have?  Apply  this  to  Mary's  sanctity,  we  find  the 
first  moment  of  her  existence  upon  the  summit  of  the  holy 
mountain — that  is  to  say,  her  very  first  step  in  life — is  dearer  to 
the  Lord  than  the  palaces  and  tabernacles  of  Judah ;  that  is,  all 
the  edifices  of  sanctity  that  were  ever  built  up  on  this  earth. 
This  was  the  beginning — the  conception  of  the  woman  who  was 
destined  to  be  the  mother  of  God,  made  man.  But,  you  may 
ask  me,  in  that  case,  If  she  never  sinned,  even  in  Adam,  surely 
she  stood  in  no  need  of  a  Redeemer ;  surely  she  was  the  only 
one  for  whom  it  was  not  necessary  that  God  should  become 
man ;  God  became  man  to  redeem  sinners — to  save  them ;  if 
this  woman  did  not  require  redemption  or  salvation,  why  does 
she  say  in  the  Magnificat,  "  My  soul  doth  magnify  the  Lord, 
and  my  spirit  hath  rejoiced  in  God,  my  Saviour?"     Well,  my 


The  Immaculate  Conception.  269 

friends,  she  owes  as  much  to  the  blood  of  Calvary  as  we  do,  and 
more.  He  was  more  her  Saviour  than  ours.  Whence  came 
the  grace  of  her  immaculate  conception  ?  whence  came  the 
power  that  kept  her  out  of  the  way  when  all  the  rest  of  man- 
kind was  swept  into  this  current  of  sin?  It  was  her  divine 
Son,  foreseen  in  the  years  of  his  humanity — foreseen  by 
the  eye  of  God's  justice  in  the  agony  of  His  crucifixion ; 
it  was  the  blood  that  was  shed  upon  Calvary  to  save  us  that 
saved  Mary  from  ever  being  tainted  with  sin.  Do  you  not 
know  that  the  Almighty  God  may  save  in  any  way  lie  likes  ?  Do 
you  not  know,  my  friends,  that  the  Almighty  God  is  not  bound 
to  save  this  soul  or  that,  in  this  or  that  particular  way  ?  For 
instance,  the  Almighty  God  appointed  circumcision  as  the  only 
way  by  which  original  sin  was  to  be  removed  under  the  old  law, 
and  yet  we  know  that  He  saved  and  sanctified  Jeremias  and 
John  the  Baptist  without  circumcision,  and  before  ;  because, 
although  circumcision  was  the  ordinary  way,  Almighty  God  did 
not  tie  His  hands,  nor  oblige  Himself  never  to  apply  an  extraor- 
dinary way.  And  so,  wherever  there  is  a  human  spirit  made 
fit  for  heaven,  that  saving  and  that  fitness  is  purchased  by  the 
blood  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  by  that  alone.  It  saved  Mary,  as  it 
saved  us,  only  in  a  different  manner ;  it  saved  us  by  falling  upon 
our  sinful  heads  in  baptism — literally  washing  away  the  stain 
that  was  already  there  ;  it  saved  Mary  by  anticipating  baptism, 
by  removing  her  from  the  necessity  of  the  sacrament,  by  antici- 
pation. In  us  this  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  is  a  cleansing  grace; 
in  Mary  it  was  a  preventing  grace.  She  is  saved  as  much  as  we 
are.  For  instance,  suppose  a  wise  prophet — a  man  that  had  a 
knowledge  of  the  future — were  to  stand  on  the  sea-shore,  and 
see  a  number  of  persons  about  to  embark  on  board  a  ship, 
leaving  for  a  distant  port,  and  that  he  said  to  one  of  them, 
"  That  ship  is  going  to  be  shipwrecked ;  do  not  go  on  board," 
and  the  person  followed  his  advice  and  was  saved ;  the  others 
went  out  on  the  ship,  and  it  is  wrecked,  as  was  foretold  ;  the 
prophet  is  there,  by  some  mysterious  means,  and  saves  theifi  all 
He  is  as  much  the  savior  of  the  person  who  stayed  on  shore  as  of 
those  he  saved  on  the  vessel  after  it  was  wrecked.  And  so  it  is 
with  God.  He  took  Mary  aside,  and  His  spirit  overshadowed 
her,  and  He  saved  her.  Oh,  how  gloriously  does  God  save  her ! 
how  magnificently  He  vindicated   Himself  in  her !  how  kindl} 


270  The  Immaculate  Conception. 

and  mercifully  he  preserved  one  specimen  of  our  pure  and  un 
broken  nature  in  her !  Well  might  He  hold  her  forth,  as  it 
were,  in  His  hand,  to  frighten  the  devil,  even  on  the  day  of  his 
triumph,  when  he  said:  "The  woman,  O  spirit  of  evil,  whom 
thou  knowest  well,  will  crush  thy  head."  Mary  was  the  terror 
of  hell  from  the  beginning,  because  hell  was  afraid,  from  the 
beginning,  of  the  pure,  unfallen  nature  of  man,  and  that  was 
saved  only  in  her. 

Let  us,  therefore,  meditate  upon  these  things,  and,  giving 
thanks  to  God  for  all  He  did,  for  the  greatest  boon  of  mercy  to 
our  race — in  that  God  so  sanctified  a  creature  that  she  might 
be  worthy  to  approach  him — endeavor,  in  our  own  humble  way, 
by  purifying  our  souls,  putting  away  from  us  our  sins,  and  by 
weeping  over  the  follies  and  errors  that  we  have  allowed  to 
come  upon  our  souls,  thus  fit  ourselves,  that  at  some  immeasur- 
able distance  we  too  may  be  able  to  approach  him  and  Mary 
the  Holy  Mother  of  God. 


THE  IMMACULATE  CONCEPTION. 


[Sermon  delivered  in  St.  Andrew's  Church,  New  York,  May  19th,  1872.I 

'  Thou  art  the  glory  of  Jerusalem  ;  thou  art  the  joy  of  Israel ;  thou  art  the  honor 
of  our  people." 

HESE  words,  dearly  beloved  brethren,  are  found  in 
the  Book  of  Judith,  and  they  commemorate  a  great 
and  eventful  period  of  Jewish  history.  At  that  time 
the  Assyrian  king  sent  a  mighty  army,  under  his  gen- 
eral, Holofernes,  to  subdue  all  the  nations  of  the  earth,  and  to 
oblige  them  not  only  to  forsake  their  own  national  existence, 
but  also  to  conform  to  the  religion  and  the  rites  of  the  Assyr- 
ians. This  great  army  the  Scripture  describes  to  us  as  invin- 
cible. Their  horses  covered  the  plains ;  their  soldiers  filled  the 
valleys  ;  there  was  no  power  upon  the  earth  that  was  able  to 
resist  them,  until  at  length  they  came  before  a  mountain-city 
called  Bethulia.  They  summoned  the  fortress  and  commanded 
the  soldiers  to  surrender.  Now,  in  that  town  there  was  a 
woman  by  the  name  of  Judith.  The  Scripture  says  of  her  that 
she  was  a  holy  woman ;  that  she  fasted  every  day  of  her  life, 
and  that,  though  young  and  fair  and  most  beautiful  to  behold, 
she  lived  altogether  a  secluded  life,  absorbed  in  prayer  with 
God.  When  she  saw  the  outlying  army  of  the  Assyrians — 
when  she  heard  the  proud  claim  of  their  general,  that  the  peo- 
ple of  her  race,  of  her  nation,  should  resign  not  only  their 
national  life,  but  also  their  religion,  and  forsake  the  God  of 
Israel — she  arose  in  the  might  of  her  holiness  and  in  the  power 
of  her  strength,  and  she  went  forth  from  the  city  of  Bethulia ; 
she  sought  the  Assyrian  camp  ;  she  was  brought  into  the  pres- 
ence of  Holofernes  himself,  and  at  the  mid-hour  of  night,  whilst 


272  The  Immaculate  Conception. 

he  was  sunk  in  his  drunken  slumbers,  she  entwined  her  hand 
in  the  hair  of  his  head,  she  drew  his  own  sword  from  the 
scabbard  that  hung  by  the  bed,  and  she  cut  off  his  head,  and 
brought  it  back  in  triumph  to  her  people.  The  morning  came ; 
the  army  found  themselves  without  their  general ;  the  Jewish 
soldiers  and  people  rushed  down  upon  them,  and  there  was  a. 
mighty  slaughter  and  a  scattering  of  the  enemies  of  God  and 
of  Israel ;  and  then  the  people,  returning,  met  this  wonderful 
woman,  and  the  high-priest  sang  to  her  in  these  words  :  "  Thou 
art  the  glory  of  Jerusalem;  thou  art  the  joy  of  Israel ;  thou  art 
the  honor  of  our  people." 

Now,  dearly  beloved,  this  is  not  the  only  woman  recorded  in 
Scripture  who  did  great  things  for  the  people  and  for  the 
Church  of  God,  and  the  word  of  Scripture,  as  applied  to  her, 
was  meant  in  a  higher  and  a  greater  sense — it  was  meant 
directly  for  Judith,  but  it  was  meant  in  a  far  higher  and  nobler 
sense  for  her  of  whom  I  am  come  to  speak  to  you  this  evening 
— the  Virgin  Mother,  who  brought  forth  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
unto  this  earth.  To  Mary  does  the  word  apply  especially,  as 
every  great,  heroic  woman  who  appears  in  Scripture  typified 
her.  The  sister  of  Moses,  who  led  the  choirs  of  the  daughters 
of  Israel ;  the  daughter  of  Jeptha,  who  laid  down  her  virgin 
life  for  her  people ;  Deborah,  who  led  the  hosts  of  Israel ;  the 
mother  of  the  Maccabees,  standing  in  the  blood  of  her  seven 
sons — these,  and  all  such  women  of  whom  the  Scripture  makes 
mention,  were  all  types  of  the  higher,  the  greater,  the  real, 
yet  the  ideal  woman,  who  was  in  the  designs  of  God  to  be 
"  the  glory  of  Jerusalem,  the  joy  of  Israel,  and  the  honor  of 
our  people,"  namely:  the  Blessed  Immaculate  Virgin  Mary. 
It  is  of  the  first  of  her  graces  that  I  am  come  to  speak  to  you 
The  first  of  her  graces  was  her  immaculate  conception  Let  us 
consider  this,  and  we  shall  see  how  she  is  the  glory  of  Jerusa- 
lem, the  joy  of  Israel,  and  the  honor  of  our  race  and  of  our 
people.  Dearly  beloved,  we  know  that  before  the  eyes  of  God, 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  past  and  future  as  we  behold  it  in 
the  course  of  time.  All  that  we  consider  in  the  past  in  this 
world's  history  is  before  the  Almighty  God  at  this  moment,  as 
if  it  were  at  this  moment  taking  place ;  all  that  we  consider  in 
the  future,  even  to  the  uttermost  limits  of  eternity,  is   before 


The  Immaculate  Conception.  273 

the  mind  of  God  now,  as  if  it  were  actually  taking  place  under 
fiis  eyes — for  the  difference  between  time  and  eternity  is  this: 
that  in  time — that  is  to  say,  in  the  measure  of  our  life  and 
of  the  world's  history — everything  comes  in  succession,  event 
follows  event,  and  moment  of  time  follows  the  moment 
that  went  before  it  ;  but  in  eternity,  in  time  as  viewed  in 
relation  to  God,  when  time  assumes  the  enormous  infinite 
dimensions  of  eternity,  there  is  neither  past  nor  future,  but 
all  is  present  under  the  eye  of  God,  circumscribed  by  his 
infinite  vision  and  his  infinite  wisdom ;  therefore,  all  that 
ever  was  to  take  place  in  time  was  seen  and  foreseen  by  the 
Almighty  God.  He  foresaw  the  creation  of  man,  although  that 
creation  did  not  come  until  after  the  eternal  years  that  never 
had  a  beginning.  And  so  he  foresaw  the  fall  of  man  ;  how  the 
first  of  our  race  was  to  pollute  himself  personally  by  sin,  and  in 
that  personal  pollution  was  to  pollute  our  whole  nature,  because 
our  nature  came  from  him  ;  just  as  when  the  man  poisons  the 
fountain-head  of  the  river,  goes  up  into  the  mountains,  finds  the 
little  spring  from  which  the  little  river  comes,  that  afterwards, 
passing  into  the  valley,  enlarges  its  bed,  and  swells  in  its  dimen- 
sions, until  it  rolls  a  mighty  torrent  into  the  ocean.  If  you  go 
up  into  the  mountain,  if  you  poison  the  fountain-head  of  the 
little  stream  that  comes  out  from  under  the  rock,  all  the  waters 
that  flow  in  the  river-bed  become  infected  and  poisoned,  be- 
cause the  spring  and  the  source  of  the  river  is  tainted  ;  so,  also, 
in  Adam  our  nature  sinned  ;  he  lay  at  the  fountain-head  of 
humanity,  and  the  whole  stream  of  our  nature  that  flowed  from 
him  came  down  to  you  and  to  me  with  the  taint  and  poison  of 
sin  in  our  blood  and  in  our  veins.  Therefore  does  the  Apostle 
say  that  we  are  all  born  children  of  the  wrath  of  God ;  there- 
fore did  the  prophet  of  old  say :  "  For,  behold,  in  iniquity  was  I 
conceived,  and  in  sin  did  my  mother  conceive  me."  God  saw 
and  foresaw  all  this  from  eternity;  He  saw  that  His  creature 
man,  whom  He  made  so  pure,  so  perfect,  so  holy,  was  tn  be 
spoiled  and  tainted  by  sin.  In  that  universal  corruption,  the 
Almighty  God  preserved  to  him  one,  and  only  one,  of  the  race 
of  mankind,  and  preserved  that  one  specimen  of  our  race  un- 
polluted, untainted,  unfallen.  That  one  was  the  Blessed  Virgin 
Mary.  Certainly,  such  a  one  must  have  existed,  because  the 
Scripture — the  inspired  word  of  God — speaks  of  such  a  one  when 

18 


274  The  Immaculate  Conception. 

it  says :  M  Thou  art  all  fair,  oh,  my  beloved,  and  there  is  no 
stain  on  thee."  Who  is  she?  Is  she  multiplied?  Is  she  found 
here  and  there  amongst  the  daughters  of  men  ?  No  ;  she  is  one 
and  only  one.  Therefore  the  Scripture  says  :  "  My  beloved,  my 
love,  my  dove,  is  one  and  only  one."  That  one  was  the  Blessed 
Virgin  Mary.  God  took  her  and  preserved  her  from  the  stream 
of  corruption  that  infected  our  whole  nature.  God  folded  His 
arms  of  infinite  sanctity  around  her,  and  took  her  in  the  very  first 
moments  of  her  existence — nay,  in  the  eternal  decree  that  went 
before  that  existence.  He  folded  her  in  the  arms  of  His  own 
infinite  sanctity,  and  she  is  one  to  whom  shade  of  thought  of 
sin  or  evil  has  never  been  allowed  to  approach.  Why  is  this  ? 
Because,  dearly  beloved,  she  was  destined  from  all  eternity  to 
be  the  mother  of  God,  who  was  made  incarnate-  in  her.  The 
language  of  the  Church  is :  "  He  was  incarnate  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  and  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  was  made  man."  She  was 
destined  from  all  eternity  to  be  the  mother  of  God — to  give  to 
the  Almighty  God  that  humanity,  that  body,  that  flesh  and 
blood  which  He  was  to  assume  in  His  own  divine  person,  and  to 
make  one  with  God  by  the  unity  of  one  divine  person,  the 
Second  Person  of  the  Blessed  Trinity.  Reflect  upon  this.  The 
Scriptures  expressly  tell  us  that  nothing  defiled  can  approach  to 
God — that  nothing  with  the  slightest  speck  or  stain  of  sin  upon 
it  can  come  near  God.  Therefore  it  is,  that  in  proportion  as 
men  approach  to  God,  in  the  same  proportion  are  they  immacu- 
late. Almighty  God  tells  us  in  the  Scripture,  expressly,  that 
although  all  men  were  to  be  born  in  sin,  yet  there  were  a  few,  a 
very  few,  who  were  excepted  from  that  general  rule,  because 
they  were  allowed  to  approach  so  near  God.  The  prophet  Jere- 
mias  was  excepted  from  that  rule,  and  he  was  sanctified  before 
he  came  forth  from  his  mother's  womb.  "  Before  thou  earnest 
forth  from  thy  mother,  I  sanctified  thee,"  said  the  Lord.  And 
why  ?  Because  he  was  destined  to  be  a  prophet,  and  to  pro- 
pound the  word  of  God  to  the  people.  John  the  Baptist  was 
sanctified  in  his  mother's  womb,  and  came  forth  in  his  birth  free 
from  the  original  sin  of  Adam,  because  he  was  destined  to  be 
God's  herald  amongst  men  and  say  :  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God, 
who  takes  away  the  sins  of  the  world."  And  if  these  men — one 
because  he  was  to  preach  the  word  of  God,  another  because  he 


The  Immaculate  Conception.  275 

was  to  point  out  God  to  man — if  they,  because  of  this 
high  function,  were  born  without  sin,  surely,  dearly  beloved, 
we  at  once  must  conclude  that  the  woman  who  was  to  give 
God  His  sacred  humanity,  the  woman  who  was  to  be  the  mother 
of  God,  the  woman  who  was  to  afford  to  the  Almighty  God 
that  blood  by  which  He  wiped  out  the  sin  of  the  world,  that 
woman  must  receive  far  more  than  either  John  the  Baptist  or 
Jeremias  received  and  the  grace  that  she  received  must  have 
been  the  grace  of  the  conception  without  sin ;  and  in  truth,  as 
nothing  defiled,  nothing  tainted,  was  ever  allowed  to  approach 
Almighty  God,  the  woman  who  approached  Him  nearest  of  all 
the  daughters  of  the  earth,  who  came  nearer  to  God  than  all 
His  angels  in  heaven  were  allowed  to  approach  Him,  must  be 
the  only  one  of  whom  the  Scripture  speaks,  when  it  says,  "  My 
beloved  is  one  and  only  one,  and  she  is  all  fair,  and  there  is  no 
spot  nor  stain  in  her."  What  follows  from  this?  It  follows 
that  the  immaculate  woman  who  was  destined  to  be  the  mothei 
of  Jesus  Christ  received  at  the  first  moment  of  her  being  a  grace 
inconceivably  greater  than  all  the  grace  that  was  given  to  all  the 
angels  in  heaven,  to  all  the  saints  upon  the  earth,  because  the 
dignity  for  which  she  was  created  was  inconceivably  greater  than 
theirs.  The  highest  angel  in  heaven  was  made  but  to  be  the 
servant  of  God.  Mary  was  created  to  be  the  mother  of  God. 
What  was  that  grace?  Perfect  purity,  perfect  sinlessness,  perfect 
immaculateness,  and  consequently  perfect  love  of  God  and  high- 
est union  with  Him.  For  reflect,  my  dear  friends,  whenever  the 
human  soul  is  found  perfectly  free  from  sin,  without  spot  or  stain 
of  sin,  without  the  slightest  inclination  or  temptation  to  sin — 
wherever  such  a  soul  is  found,  that  soul  is  united  to  the  Almighty 
God  by  the  highest,  by  the  most  perfect,  and  the  most  intimate 
union  of  divine  love.  God  loves  all  his  creatures,  God  loves  the 
soul  of  man,  so  that  wherever  He  finds  that  there  is  no  impedi- 
ment of  sin  no  distortion  of  inclination,  nothing  to  hinder  that 
union,  He  gives  Himself  to  that  soul  in  the  most  intimate  and 
highest  form  of  love,  and  He  gathers  that  soul  to  Him  by  the 
most  perfect  union.  Hence  it  is  that  perfect  union  with  God  and 
perfect  sinlessness  mean  one  and  the  same  thing.  The  Blessed 
Virgin  Mary,  conceived  without  sin,  was  kept  and  held  aside  to 
let  the  stream  of  sin  flow  by  without  touching  her.  The  only 
one  in  whom  our  nature  was  preserved  in  all  its  pristine  beauty 


276  The  Immaculate  Conception. 

and  perfection,  the  blessed  Virgin  Mary,  in  that  sinlessness  of 
her  conception,  attained  at  the  moment  of  her  conception  the 
most  perfect  and  intimate  union  with  God.  And  this,  for  which 
all  the  saints  and  all  holy  souls  strive  on  the  earth,  the  very 
highest  climax  of  saintly  perfection,  was  the  first  beginning  of 
her  sanctity.  The  saint  who  wearies  himself  during  the  sixty 
or  seventy  years  of  his  life,  the  hermit  in  the  desert,  the  martyr 
in  the  arena,  all  aim  at  this  one  thing — to  purge  their  souls  most 
perfectly  from  sin,  from  every  mortal  and  venal  sin,  to  rise  above 
their  passions  and  their  lower  and  sinful  nature  ;  and  in  propor- 
tion as  they  attain  to  this  do  they  climb  the  summit  of  perfec- 
tion and  attain  to  perfect  union  with  God.  That  which  all  the 
saints  tend  to,  that  which  all  the  virgins  and  saints  in  the  Church 
sigh  for,  that  which  they  consider  as  the  very  summit  of  their 
perfection — that  is  the  grace  that  was  given  to  Mary  at  the 
first  moment  of  her  being — namely,  to  be  perfectly  pure,  per- 
fectly sinless,  perfectly  immaculate,  consequently  perfectly  united 
to  God  by  supreme  and  most  intimate  love.  And  this  is  the 
meaning  of  the  word  of  Scripture  :  "  The  foundations  of  her  are 
laid  upon  the  holy  mountain.  The  Lord  loves  the  threshold  of 
Zion  more  than  all  the  tabernacles  and  tents  of  Judah  ;"  more 
than  all  the  accumulated  perfection  of  all  the  angels  and  saints 
of  God  ;  where  they  end  is  the  beginning  of  Mary's  perfection 
in  his  sight. 

Now,  let  me  apply  the  text,  "  Thou  art  the  glory  of  Jerusalem  ; 
thou  art  the  joy  of  Israel ;  thou  art  the  honor  of  our  people." 
Whenever  the  Scriptures  speak  figuratively  or  spiritually  of 
Jerusalem,  they  always  allude  to  the  kingdom  of  heav«  n,  the 
kingdom  of  the  just  made  perfect.  The  Church  of  God.  dearly 
beloved,  consists  of  three  great  elements  or  portions.  There  is 
the  church  that  purges  in  purgatory  the  elect  of  God  by  the  slow 
action  of  divine  justice,  cleansing  them  from  every  stain,  and 
paying  the  last  farthing  of  their  debt.  That  is  the  Church  Suf- 
fering. There  is  the  church  on  earth,  contending  against  the 
world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil ;  fighting  a  hard  and  weary  battle, 
which  you  and  I  are  obliged  to  fight  all  our  live's.  We  are 
obliged  to  fight  against  our  passions,  and  subdue  them.  We 
are  obliged  to  fight  against  the  powers  of  darkness  seeking  our 
destruction,  and  subdue  them.  We  are  obliged  to  fight  with 
the  world,  surrounding  us  with  its  evil  maxims,  with  its  loose 


The  Immaculate  Conception.  277 

principles,  with  its  false  ideas  of  morality,  with  its  bad  example; 
and,  despising  all  these,  to  conquer  them.  We  are  obliged  to 
fight  the  battle  of  our  faith  ;  we  are  obliged  to  enter  upon  this, 
that,  and  the  other  questions,  and  upon  these  questions  to  take 
our  stand  as  Catholics,  and  to  fight  the  good  fight  of  faith.  The 
question  of  sacraments,  the  question  of  education,  the  question 
of  the  church,  the  question  of  the  Pope,  the  question  of  the  in- 
justice of  the  world  in  robbing  him  of  all  his  power  and  of  his 
dignity,  these,  and  a  thousand  others,  are  the  burden  of  the 
Church's  battle  on  this  earth,  and  therefore  she  is  called  the 
Church  Militant.  The  Suffering  Church,  or  the  Militant  Church, 
it  is  still  the  same  Church  of  God.  Having  passed  through  the 
battle-field  of  earth,  having  passed  through  the  purgation  of 
purgatory,  and  having  attained  to  the  vision  of  God,  there  she 
triumphs  ;  there  she  rejoices  in  the  undiminished  glory  and  the 
uncreated  brightness  of  God — and  that  is  the  Church  Triumph- 
ant. Now,  the  Scriptures,  speaking  of  that  kingdom  of  heaven, 
or  of  the  Church  Triumphant,  mentions  it  under  the  name  of 
Jerusalem.  For  instance  :  "  I  saw,"  says  the  inspired  evangelist, 
"  the  new  Jerusalem  descending  from  heaven,  as  a  bride  arrayed 
for  her  bridegroom."  St.  Paul,  speaking  of  the  same  kingdom, 
says:  "  But  you  are  come  to  Mount  Zion,  and  to  the  city  of  the 
living  God,  the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  and  to  the  spirits  of  the 
just  made  perfect."  Jerusalem,  therefore,  as  expressed  in  the 
words  of  my  text,  "  Thou  art  the  glory  of  Jerusalem,"  means 
the  Church  Triumphant.  It  means  the  glorious  assemblage  of 
all  the  angels  of  God  ;  it  means  the  glorious  society  of  all  the 
saints  of  God  ;  it  means  all  that  heaven  or  earth  ever  held 
or  had  of  noble,  generous,  self-sacrificing,  and  devoted,  now 
crowned  with  the  immortal,  everlasting  glory  of  the  presence 
of  God.  And  of  that  assemblage  of  the  Church  Triumphant, 
Mary  is  the  glory.  And  why?  Because,  as  the  Scripture  tells 
us  expressly,  the  angels  of  God  take  interest  in  the  affairs  of 
this  world.  Our  Lord,  speaking  of  little  children,  says,  "  Woe  to 
you  who  scandalize  them,  because  their  angels  see  the  face  of  my 
Father."  Elsewhere  he  says,  "  There  is  joy  in  heaven  for  one 
sinner  doing  penance,  rather  than  for  ninety-nine  just  who  need 
not  penance."  If,  then,  the  angels  in  heaven  rejoice  at  every 
new  manifestation  of  the  glory  and  omnipotence  of  God ;  if 
their  glory  is  to  contemplate  the  Almighty  God  in  his  works,  it 


278  The  Immaculate  Conception. 

follows,  that  whenever  they  see  these  works  destroyed,  when, 
ever  they  see  the  purposes  of  the  Almighty  God  frustrated, 
whenever  they  see  the  work  and  the  mercy  of  God  ruined,  they 
must  grieve,  as  far  as  they  are  capable  of  grieving,  because  they 
rejoice  when  that  work  is  restored  by  repentance.  They,  there- 
fore, looking  down  from  their  high  place  in  heaven,  beheld  with 
great  joy  the  new-born  race  of  men ;  they  beheld  the  work  of 
God  most  perfect  in  our  first  parents,  Adam  and  Eve.  They 
saw  in  the  first  woman  that  was  created,  the  woman  who  was 
destined,  in  her  progeny,  to  people  heaven  with  saints,  and  to 
fill  the  thrones  that  were  left  empty  there  by  the  desertion  of 
the  rebel  angels.  Their  glory  was,  that  their  nine  choirs  before 
God  might  be  filled,  and  that  the  chorus  of  heavenly  music 
might  be  perfect  in  its  harmony,  by  the  filling  of  their  places. 
They  saw  that  one-third  of  their  angelic  brethren  had  fallen  into 
hell,  and  left  the  halls  of  heaven  more  or  less  empty  by  their 
fall.  They  waited — they  waited  for  many  years — we  know  not 
how  long;  we  know  not  but  that  that  time  of  waiting  may  have 
extended  for  thousands  of  years — until  at  length  they  beheld  the 
Creator  make  the  new  creature,  man.  They  knew  the  destinies 
of  man  ;  they  knew  that  this  woman  who  was  made  upon  the 
earth,  was  to  be  the  mother  of  the  race  that  was  to  fill  up  their 
choirs,  and  to  fulfill  and  make  perfect  their  glory  in  heaven. 
Oh,  how  sad  was  their  disappointment !  oh,  how  terrible  was 
their  grief  when  they  saw  Eve  fall  into  sin,  and  become  the 
mother  of  a  race  of  reprobates,  and  not  of  saints,  and  her  des- 
tiny change ;  that  she  should  people  hell  with  reprobates  rather 
than  fulfil  her  high  office  and  people  heaven  with  saints.  Mary 
arose.  The  earth  beheld  her  face.  Her  coming  was  as  the 
rising  of  the  morning  star,  which,  trembling  in  its  silvery  beauty 
over  the  eastern  hills,  tells  the  silent  and  the  darkened  world 
that  the  bright  sun  is  about  to  follow  it  and  to  dispel  the  dark 
ness  of  the  night  by  the  splendor  and  the  brightness  of  its  shin- 
ing. Mary  arose,  and  when  the  angels  of  God  beheld  her  their 
glory  was  fulfilled  ;  for  now  they  knew  that  the  mother  of  the 
saints  was  come,  and  that  the  woman  was  created  who  was  to 
do  what  had  failed  in  Eve — to  people  heaven  with  the  progeny 
of  saints  in  everlasting  glory.  Therefore  did  they  hail  her 
coming  with  angelic  joy.  Oh,  what  joy  was  theirs  when  they 
looked  down  upon  the  earth  and  beheld  the  fallen  race  of  man 


The  Immaculate  Conception.  279 

restored  in  all  its  first  integrity  in  Mary !  Oh,  what  joy  was 
theirs  who  rejoiced  when  Magdalen  arose  in  all  the  purity  of 
her  repentance ;  they  who  rejoice  and  make  the  vaults  of 
heaven  ring  with  their  joy  when  you  or  I  make  a  good  confes- 
sion and  do  penance  for  our  sins.  Oh,  what  must  their  joy 
have  been  and  the  riot  of  their  delight  and  of  their  glory  when 
they  beheld  in  Mary  the  mother  of  all  those  who  are  ever  to 
be  saved,  the  mother  of  all  true  penitents,  the  mother  of  all 
the  elect  of  God,  for,  becoming  the  mother  of  Jesus  Christ,  she 
has  become  the  mother  of  all  the  rest.  Therefore  is  she  the 
glory  of  the  heavenly  Jerusalem.  Therefore  did  these  angels, 
on  the  day  of  her  assumption,  joyfully  come  to  heaven's  gate, 
and  fill  the  mid-air  with  the  sound  of  their  triumph,  when 
heaven'.s  queen,  the  mother  of  heaven's  God,  was  raised  into 
the  place  of  her  glory.  "  The  morning  stars  praised  the  Lord 
together,  and  all  the  suns  of  God  made  a  joyful  melody."  The 
glory  of  Jerusalem,  the  angel's  glory,  is  concentrated  in  the  glory 
of  God.  Whatever  gives  glory  to  God  glorifies  them.  Now  in 
all  the  works  of  God  He  is  most  glorified  in  Mary,  as  we  shall 
see  ;  and  therefore  Mary  is  the  glory  of  the  heavenly  Jerusalem 
and  the  delight  of  God's  blessed  spirits  and  angels  in  his  ever- 
lasting kingdom.  But  she  is  more,  she  is  the  joy  of  Israel. 
What  is  this  Israel  ?  Jerusalem  was  the  summit  of  Israel's  tri- 
umphs. Israel  had  to  fight  for  many  a  weary  year  before  the 
foundations  of  the  Holy  City  were  laid.  Israel,  that  is  to  say, 
the  Jewish  people,  passed  through  the  desert,  crossing  the  Red 
Sea,  fighting  with  their  enemies,  there  to  wait  for  many  a  long 
and  weary  year,  until  the  holy  city  of  Jerusalem  was  raised  up 
in  all  its  beauty,  and  until  the  temple  of  God  was  founded 
there.  And  just  as  that  city,  Jerusalem,  that  Gem  of  God, 
represents  the  Church  Triumphant,  so  by  the  name  of  Israel 
the  inspired  one  meant  the  Church  Militant,  the  Church  in  the 
desert  of  this  earth,  the  Church  passing  through  the  Red  Sea 
of  the  martyr  blood ;  the  Church  crossing  swords  with  every 
enemy  of  God  and  fighting  and  bearing  the  burden  and  the 
heat  of  the  day.  Of  that  Church  Militant,  of  that  Israel  of 
God,  Mary  is  the  joy.  Why  ?  Dearly  beloved,  Christ  our  Lord 
founded  His  Church  for  one  expres*  purpose,  and  it  was  that 
where  sin  abounded  sin  might  be  destroyed  and  grace  abound 
still  more.     "  For  this  I  am  come,"  He  says,  "  that  where  sin 


280  The  Immaculate  Conception. 

abounded  grace  might  abound  still  more."  Wherever,  there^ 
fore,  there  is  a  victory  over  sin  by  Divine  grace  there  is  the  joy 
of  the  Church  Militant,  because  there  is  her  work  accomplished. 
Wherever  the  sinner  rises  out  of  his  sin  and  does  penance  and 
returns  t<r  God,  there  the  Church  triumphs,  her  mission  is  ful- 
filled, the  purpose  for  which  she  was  created  is  accomplished, 
and  her  joy  is  great  in  proportion.  Now  where  has  grace  so 
triumphed  over  sin  as  in  Mary  ?  Sin  abounded  in  this  world  ; 
Christ  came  and  shed  his  blood  that  grace  might  take  the  place 
of  sin,  and  superabound  where  sin  had  abounded  before.  Where 
has  grace  so  triumphed  over  sin  as  in  Mary?  Great  is  the  tri- 
umph of  grace  when  it  expels  sin  from  the  sinner's  soul  and 
makes  that  which  was  impure  to  be  purified,  and  makes 
that  which  was  unjust  to  be  glorified  by  sanctity  before 
God.  Oh,  still  greater  is  the  triumph  when  grace  can  so 
anticipate  sin  as  never  to  allow  sin  to  make  its  appearance. 
The  most  perfect  triumph  of  grace  is  in  the  utter  exclusion  of 
sin.  Therefore  it  is  that  Christ  our  Lord,  in  His  sacred  human- 
ity, was  grace  itself  personified  in  man,  because  in  Him  there 
was  essential  holiness  and  an  utter  impossibility  of  the  approach 
of  sin.  If  the  joy  of  the  Church  then  be  in  proportion  to  the 
triumph  of  grace  over  sin,  surely  she  must  be  the  joy  of  Israel 
and  the  first  fruits  of  the  Church,  the  only  one  that  this  mysti- 
cal body  of  Christ  can  offer  to  God  as  perfectly  acceptable,  the 
only  soul,  the  only  creature  that  the  Church  can  offer  to  God 
and  say,  "  Lord,  look  down  from  heaven  upon  this  child  and 
daughter  of  mine  ;  she  is  Thy  beloved,  in  whom  there  is  no  spot 
nor  stain."  She  is  the  joy  of  Israel.  Oh,  my  dearly  beloved, 
need  I  tell  you,  you  who  were  born  in  the  faith  like  myself,  you 
who  come  from  Catholic  stock,  from  Catholic  blood,  you  in 
whose  veins,  in  whose  Irish  veins,  hundreds  of  years  of  Catholic 
faith  and  Catholic  sanctity  are  flowing,  need  I  tell  you  of  the 
woman  whose  name,  preached  by  Patrick  fourteen  hundred 
years  ago,  has  been  from  that  hour  to  this  Ireland's  greatest 
consolation  in  the  midst  of  her  sorrows  ?  Ireland's  greatest 
consolation.  In  the  loss  of  fortune,  in  the  loss  of  property,  in 
the  loss  of  liberty,  in  the  loss  of  national  existence,  every  Irish 
Catholic  has  been  consoled  in  the  midst  of  his  privation,  by  the 
thought  that  the  mother  of  God  loved  him  and  that  he  had  a 
daim  upon  Mary  Mother.     Well  do  I  remember  one  whose  ex« 


The  Immaculate  Conception.  28 1 

pression  embodied  all  of  Irish  faith  and  Irish  love  for  Mary ;  an 
old  woman  whom  I  met,  weeping  over  a  grave,  lying  there  with 
a  broken  heart,  waiting  only  for  the  hand  of  death  to  put  her  into 
the  dust  where  all  she  had  loved  had  gone  before  her  ;  forgotten 
by  all,  abandoned  by  all,  the  hand  of  misery  and  poverty  upon 
her,  and  when  I  would  console  her  and  speak  to  her  of  heaven 
and  of  heaven's  glory,  when  I  endeavored  to  lighten  the  burden 
of  her  sorrow  by  consolation,  she  turned  to  me  and  said  :  "  Oh, 
father,  you  need  not  speak  to  me.  The  cross  may  be  heavy,  but 
the  Virgin  Mary's  cross  was  heavier  than  mine."  She  forgot  her 
sorrows  in  her  great  love  for  Mary.  Nay,  that  love,  even  in  her 
sorrow,  was  as  a  gleam  of  hope,  one  ray  of  joy  let  in  upon  the 
soul  that  otherwise  might  have  despaired.  And  thus  it  is  that 
Mary — the  knowledge  of  her  love  for  us,  the  knowledge  of  our 
tlaim  upon  her,  the  knowledge  of  the  divine  commission  that 
>  er  Son  gave  her  upon  the  cross,  to  be  the  mother  of  all  that 
were  ever  to  love  Him — is  the  one  ray  of  joyful  and  divine  con- 
solation that  Christ  our  Lord  lets  in  upon  every  wounded  spirit 
and  every  broken  heart. 

Finally,  she  is  the  honor  of  our  people.  Dear  friends,  the 
Almighty  God,  when,  He  created  us,  invested  His  own  divine 
honor  in  man.  He  gave  to  man  a  mighty  intelligence,  a  high  and 
pure  love,  and  a  freedom  of  will  asserting  the  dominion  of  the 
soul  over  the  body,  and  through  that  body  the  dominion  of  man 
over  all  creatures.  Everything  on  this  earth  obeyed  him.  The 
eagle  flying  in  the  upper  air  closed  his  wings  and  came  to  earth 
to  pay  homage  to  the  unfallen  man.  The  lion  and  the  tiger,  at 
the  sound  of  his  voice,  came  forth  from  their  lairs  to  lick  the 
feet  of  their  imperial  master,  the  unfallen  man.  As  everything 
without  him  was  obedient  to  him,  so  everything  within  him 
was  obedient  to  the  dictates  of  his  clear  reason  and  to  the  em- 
pire of  his  glorious  will.  In  this  was  the  honor  of  God  reflected 
as  it  was  invested  in  man.  God  gave  him  intelligence ;  God  is 
wisdom;  His  wisdom  was  invested  in  man.  God  gave  him  love. 
God  is  love,  and  the  purity  of  that  love  was  reflected  in  the 
affections  of  unfallen  man  ;  God  is  power,  empire,  and  freedom, 
and  the  empire  of  God  and  the  freedom  of  God  were  reflected 
in  the  free  will  of  man,  in  the  imperial  sway  in  which  he  com- 
manded all  creatures.  Thus  was  the  honor  of  God  invested 
in   us.     Now   sin   came   and  destroyed   all  this.     The  serpent 


282  The  Immaculate  Conception. 

came  hissing  his  triumph  in  the  ears  of  a  vain  and  foolish 
woman,  who,  unmindful  of  all  that  she  had,  risked  all  and  lost 
all  for  the  gratification  of  her  appetite  and  of  her  womanly  curi- 
osity. The  serpent  came  and  told  Eve  to  rebel  against  God. 
Eve  rebelled  ;  she  induced  Adam  to  rebel,  and  in  this  twofold 
rebellion  man  lost  all  that  God  had  given  him  of  grace  and  oi 
supernatural  goodness.  All  of  divine  honor  that  Almighty  God 
reflected  in  man,  all  of  divine  glory  that  He  had  participated  to 
man,  all  was  lost ;  the  intelligence  was  darkened  ;  the  affections 
were  depraved ;  the  freedom  of  the  soul  was  enslaved,  and  man 
was  no  longer  the  high,  and  pure,  and  perfect  image  of  his 
Creator.  Now,  as  we  have  seen,  in  that  sin  of  Adam,  not  only 
was  that  man  himself  destroyed  and  corrupted,  but  the  whole 
race  of  mankind  was  corrupted  in  him.  How  is  Mary  the 
honor  of  our  people?  She  is  the  honor  of  our  people  in  this, 
that  where  all  was  ruined,  she  alone  was  preserved ;  that  but  for 
her  and  her  immaculate  conception,  neither  God  in  heaven,  nor 
saint,  nor  angel  in  heaven,  nor  man  upon  the  earth  would  ever 
again  look  upon  the  face  of  unfallen  man.  The  work  of  God 
would  have  been  completely  destroyed;  not  a  vestige  would 
remain  of  what  man  was  as  he  came  fron*  his  Creator's  hand, 
but  that  the  Almighty  preserved  one  unfallen  specimen  of  our 
race  to  show  his  angels  and  his  saints  in  heaven,  and  to  show 
all  men  upon  the  earth  what  a  glorious  humanity  was  the  un- 
tainted nature  which  God  had  invested  in  man.  She  is  the 
solitary  boast  of  our  fallen  nature.  Take  Mary  away  ;  deprive 
her  of  the  grace  of  an  immaculate  conception,  let  the  slightest 
taint  of  sin  come  in,  she  is  spoiled  like  the  rest  of  us,  and  the 
Almighty  God  has  not  retained  in  the  destruction  of  our  race 
one  single  specimen  of  unfallen  nature.  But  not  so,  for  God  in 
all  His  works  may  allow  His  enemy  to  prevail  against  Him  , 
He  may  allow  the  spirit  of  evil  to  come  in  and  spoil  and  taint 
and  destroy  His  works,  but  He  never  allows  His  works  to  be 
stroyed  utterly — never.  When  mankind  fell  from  God  and 
from  grace,  so  that  the  image  of  God  and  the  spirit  of  God  dis- 
appeared from  amongst  them,  the  Almighty  found  it  necessary 
to  destroy  the  whole  race  of  man  in  the  deluge.  He  preserved 
Noah,  and  his  sons  and  his  daughters  ;  eight  souls  were  pre- 
served whilst  hundreds  of  millions  were  destroyed ;  but  God 
in  these  eight  souls  preserved  the  race,  and  did  not  allow  the 


The  Immaculate  Conception.  283 

spirit  of  evil  to  utterly  destroy  His  work.  When  God  drew 
back  again  the  bolts  of  heaven,  and  allowed  the  living  fire  of  His 
wrath  to  fall  upon  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  and  destroyed  the 
whole  nation,  yet  even  then  He  saved  Lot  and  his  family,  and 
a  few  were  saved  where  the  rest  were  lost.  When  the  Almighty 
God  resolved  to  destroy  for  impurity  the  whole  race  of  Ben- 
jamin, yet  he  preserved  a  few,  lest  the  whole  tribe  might  be 
utterly  destroyed.  And  thus  it  is  that  we  find  the  Almighty 
God  always  preserving  one  or  two  or  three  specimens  of  His 
work,  lest  the  devil  might  glory  overmuch,  and  riot  in  his  joy  for 
having  utterly  destroyed  the  work  of  God.  Our  nature  was 
destroyed  in  Eve.  One  fair  specimen  of  all  that  could  be  in  us, 
of  all  that  was  in  Adam  before  his  sin,  of  all  that  God  intended 
man  to  be,  one  fair  specimen  of  all  this  was  preserved  in  Mary, 
who,  in  her  immaculate  conception,  enshrined  in  the  infinite  holi- 
ness of  God,  was  preserved  untainted  and  unfallen,  as  if  Adam 
had  never  sinned.  It  maybe  asked  if,  then,  this  woman  was  with- 
out sin,  if  she  was  conceived  without  sin,  how  is  it  that  she  calls 
Christ  her  Saviour,  saying  :  "  My  soul  doth  magnify  the  Lord, 
and  my  spirit  hath  rejoiced  in  God,  my  Saviour."  Oh,  my  friends, 
need  I  tell  you  that  Christ  our  Lord  is  as  much  the  Saviour  of 
Mary  as  He  is  your  Saviour  or  mine?  Need  I  tell  you  but  that 
for  His  incarnation,  but  for  His  suffering  and  passion  and  death, 
Mary  could  not  have  received  the  grace  of  her  immaculate  con- 
ception— no  more  than  you  or  I  could  have  received  the  grace  of 
our  baptism  ?  Baptism  has  done  for  us,  as  far  as  regards  the 
removal  of  original  sin,  all  the  immaculate  conception  has  for 
Mary.  For  the  four  thousand  years  that  went  before  the  in- 
carnation of  the  Son  of  God,  every  child  of  Adam  that  was 
saved,  was  saved  through  the  anticipated  merits  of  the 
blood  that  was  shed  upon  Calvary.  Adam  himself  was 
saved,  Moses  was  saved,  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  Daniel 
— all  the  prophets,  all  the  saints,  were  saved  by  their  faith 
in  the  Son  of  God,  and  by  the  prevision  of  his  merits  before 
his  Eternal  Father.  The  merits  of  the  Son  of  God  not  yet  in- 
carnate, yet  foreseen  and  applied  thousands  of  years  before  their 
time  to  the  souls  of  the  patriarchs  and  the  prophets,  the  self-same 
merits  were  applied  to  the  soul  of  Mary  in  the  eternal  design  of 
God,  in  her  immaculate  conception.  He  is  as  much  her  Saviour  as 
he  is  ours,  only  he  saved  her  in  a  way  quite  different  from  that 


284  The  Immaculate  Conception. 

in  which  we  are  saved.  You  may  save  a  man,  for  instance,  by 
keeping  him  from  going  into  the  way  of  danger ;  you  may  save 
a  child  by  taking  it  out  of  the  street  when  some  dangerous  pro- 
cession is  passing,  or  when  some  railway  engine  is  passing- 
something  that  may  endanger  its  life  ;  or  you  may  save  the  same 
child,  when  in  immediate  danger,  by  the  touch  of  your  powerful 
and  saving  hand,  and  restore  it  to  life.  So  the  Almighty  God 
saved  Mary  by  preventing  the  evil,  just  as  He  saves  us  by 
cleansing  us  from  the  evil  which  has  already  fallen  on  us. 
Hence  it  is  that  she,  more  than  any  of  us,  had  reason  to  call 
Christ — her  son — her  Lord  and  her  Saviour.  "  My  soul  doth 
magnify  the  Lord,"  she  said,  "  and  my  spirit  hath  rejoiced  in 
God,  my  Saviour."  Truly  He  was  her  Saviour.  Truly  He  shows 
His  power  in  the  manner  in  which  He  saved  her.  He  did  not 
permit  her  to  be  immersed  in  the  ocean  of  sin ;  He  did  not  take 
her,  as  something  filthy  and  defiled,  and  wash  her  soul  in  the 
laver  of  baptism,  but  he  applied  the  graces  of  baptism  to  her 
conception,  so  that  she  came  into  this  world  all  pure,  all  holy, 
all  immaculate,  just  as  the  Christian  child  comes  forth  from  the 
baptismal  fount.  Behold,  then,  how  she  is  the  glory  of  the 
heavenly  Jerusalem,  the  joy  of  the  earthly  church  of  Israel,  and 
the  honor  of  our  people;  seeing  that  if  Mary  were  not  as 
she  is  in  heaven,  immaculate  and  unstained,  that  heaven  would 
be,  after  all,  only  a  congregation  of  the  penitent.  Every  other 
soul  that  enters  heaven  enters  as  a  Magdalen — at  least  as  a 
Magdalen  rising  from  original  sin.  Mary  alone  entered  heaven 
as  Eve  would  have  entered  if  she  had  resisted  the  evil  and  con- 
quered the  temptation  of  her  sin.  Thus  do  we  behold,  dearly 
beloved,  the  mother  of  God  as  she  shines  forth  before  us  in  the 
prophecy  of  Scripture — an  honor  and  a  triumph  and  a  symbol 
of  God's  complete  victory.  The  victory  that  God  gains  over  sin 
is  not  complete  when  he  has  to  come  to  remedy  that  evil  after 
it  has  fallen  upon  the  soul.  The  complete  triumph  of  God  is 
when  he  is  able  to  preserve  the  soul  from  any  approach  of  that 
evil,  and  to  keep  it  in  all  its  original  purity  and  immaculateness 
and  innocence.  Such  was  the  woman  whom  the  prophet  be- 
held :  "  And  a  great  sign  appeared  in  heaven — a  woman  clothed 
with  the  sun,  and  the  moon  under  her  feet,  and  on  her  head  a 
crown  of  twelve  stars."  Of  what  was  this  woman  a  sign  ?  She 
was  the  sign  of  the  victory  of  God,  for  he  adds :  "  And  I  saw 


The  Immaculate  Conception.  285 

another  sign  in  heaven — a  great  dragon  stood  before  the 
woman  who  was  ready  to  be  delivered ;  but  he  was  cast  forth ; 
and  his  place  was  not  found  any  more  in  heaven."  And 
Mary  shone  forth,  in  the  eternal  council  of  God,  the  very 
>ign  and  type,  promise  and  symbol,  of  God's  victory  over  sin. 
God's  victory  over  sin  was  complete,  as  every  victory  of  God  is, 
and  the  completeness  of  that  victory  was  embodied  in  the  im- 
maculate conception  of  Mary.  What  wonder,  then,  dearly 
beloved,  that  we  should  honor  one  whom  God  has  so  loved  to 
honor.  What  wonder  that  we  should  hail  her  as  all  pure  ;  hail 
her  from  earth,  whom  God  hailed  from  heaven,  saying :  "  Thou 
art  all  fair,  my  beloved,  and  there  is  no  stain  in  thee."  What 
wonder  that  we  should  rejoice  in  her  who  is  the  joy  and  the 
glory  of  the  heavenly  Jerusalem.  What  wonder  that  we  should 
sing  praises  to  her  forever,  as  the  very  type  of  purity,  innocence, 
and  virtue,  whom  the  Almighty  God  so  filled  up  with  all  his 
highest  gifts  that  heaven  and  earth  never  beheld  such  a  creature 
as  Mary ;  that  the  very  angel  coming  down  from  before  the 
throne  of  God  was  astonished  when  he  beheld  her  greatness ; 
and,  bending  in  his  human  form  before  her,  said  :  "  All  hail  to 
thee,  oh  Mary,  for  thou  art  full  of  grace  ;"  and  when  she  trem- 
bled at  his  words  he  assured  her,  saying:  "  Fear  not,  oh,  Mary, 
for  thou  hast  found  grace  before  the  Lord."  Oh,  how  grand 
was  her  finding  !  Grace  was  lost  by  the  first  woman,  Eve,  and 
the  daughters  of  earth  sought  it  for  four  thousand  years  and 
found  it  not.  How  could  they  find  it  ?  They  came  into  this 
world  without  it.  How  could  they  find  that  grace  which  Eve 
had  lost  ?  They  came  tainted  by  Eve's  sin  upon  this  earth. 
Mary  alone  found  it — the  grace  of  immaculate  creation,  the 
grace  of  primeval  purity.  Therefore  the  angel  said  to  her : 
"  Fear  not.  I  tell  thee  that  thou  shalt  be  the  mother  of  God, 
and  that  He  that  is  to  be  born  of  thee  is  to  be  called  the  Son  of 
the  Most  High.  Yet,  oh,  woman,  fear  not,  for  I  say  to  thee 
that  thou  hast  found  grace  before  the  Lord."  Therefore  do  we 
honor  her,  my  dearly  beloved  ;  therefore  do  we  rejoice  that  she, 
being  such  as  she  is,  is  still  our  mother  and  regards  us  with  a 
mother's  love,  and  we  can  look  up  to  her  with  the  unsuspecting 
and  confiding  love  of  a  child.  Oh,  mother  mine — oh,  mother  of 
the  Church  of  God — oh,  mother  of  all  the  nations — oh,  mother 
that  kept  the  faith  in  Ireland,  that  through  temptation  and  suf 


286  The  Immaculate  Conception. 

fering  never  lost  her  love  for  thee — I  hail  thee !  As  thou  ait 
in  heaven  to-night,  clothed  with  the  sun  of  divine  justice,  with 
the  moon  reflecting  all  earthly  virtues  beneath  thy  feet,  upon 
thy  head  a  crown  of  twelve  stars,  God's  brightest  gift,  I  hail 
thee,  oh  mother !  And  in  the  name  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
and  in  the  name  of  my  Catholic  people,  and  in  the  name  of  the 
far-off  and  loved  land  that  ever  loved*  thee,  I  proclaim  that  thou 
art  the  glory  of  Jerusalem,  thou  art  the  joy  of  Israel,  and  thou 
art  the  honor  of  our  people ! 


THE  POPE, 


THE  CROWN  WHICH  HE   WEARS,    AND   OF   WHICH   NO  MAN 
CAN  DEPRIVE  HIM. 


[Delivered  in  the  Brooklyn  Academy  of  Music,  Wednesday,  April  24th,  for  the 
benefit  of  the  orphans  in  charge  of  the  Sisters  of  Mercy.] 

E  are  assembled  this  evening,  my  dear  friends,  to  con- 
template the  greatest  work  of  all  the  works  that  the 
Almighty  God  ever  created — namely,  The  Constitu- 
tion of  the  Holy  Catholic  Church.  In  every 
work  of  God  it  has  been  well  observed  that  the  Creator's  mind 
shows  itself  in  the  wonderful  harmony  that  we  behold  in  it. 
Therefore,  the  poet  has  justly  said  that  "  Order  is  heaven's  first 
law."  But  if  this  be  true  of  earthly  things,  how  much  more 
truly  wonderful  does  that  harmony  of  God,  in  the  order  which 
is  the  very  expression  of  the  divine  mind,  come  forth  and  appear 
when  we  come  to  contemplate  the  glorious  Church  which  Jesus 
Christ  first  founded  upon  this  earth.  The  glorious  Church,  I 
call  her,  and  in  using  those  words  I  only  quote  the  inspired 
Scriptures  of  God  ;  for  we  are  told  that  this  Church,  which 
Christ  the  Lord  established,  is  a  glorious  Church,  without  spot 
or  speck  or  wrinkle,  or  any  such  thing,  or  defect  of  any  kind, 
but  all-perfect,  all-glorious,  and  fit  to  be  what  He  intended  her 
to  be — the  immaculate  spouse  of  the  Son  of  God. 

Now,  that  our  divine  Redeemer  intended  to  establish  such  a 
Church  upon  the  earth  is  patent  from  the  repeated  words  of  the 
Lord  Himself;  for  it  will  appear  that  one  of  the  strongest  inten- 
tions that  was  in  the  mind  of  the  Redeemer,  and  one  of  the 
primary  conceptions  of  His  wisdom,  was  to  establish  upon  this 
earth  a  Church,  of  which  He  speaks,  over  and  over  again,  say- 
ing, "  I  will  build  My  Church  so  that  the  gates  of  hell  shall  never 


288  The  Pope. 

prevail  against  it."  "  He  that  will  not  hear  the  voice  of  the 
Church,  let  him  be  as  if  he  were  a  heathen  or  an  infidel."  And 
so,  throughout  the  Gospels,  we  find  the  Son  of  God  again  and 
again  alluding  to  His  Church,  proclaiming  what  that  Church 
was  to  be,  and  He  set  upon  her  the  signs  by  which  all  men  were 
to  know  her  as  a  patent  and  self-evident  fact  among  the  nations 
of  the  world  until  the  end  of  time.  And  what  idea  does  our 
Lord  give  us  of  His  Church  ?  He  tells  us,  first  of  all,  and  tells 
us  over  and  over  again,  that  His  Church  is  to  be  a  kingdom, 
and  he  calls  it  "  My  Kingdom."  And  elsewhere,  in  repeated 
portions  of  the  Gospel,  he  speaks  of  it  as  "  the  Kingdom  of 
God  ;"  and  one  time  he  likens  it  unto  a  city,  which  was  built 
upon  the  mountain-side,  so  that  all  men  might  behold  it.  And 
again  unto  a  candle  set  upon  the  candlestick,  so  that  it  might 
shed  its  light  throughout  the  whole  house,  and  that  every  one 
entering  the  house  might  behold  it.  And  again,  "  the  Kingdom 
of  God  is  like  unto  a  net  cast  out  into  the  sea,  and  sweeping  in 
all  that  comes  in  its  way — fish,  good  and  bad."  And  so  through- 
out, Christ  always  speaks  of  His  Church  as  a  kingdom  that  He 
was  to  establish  upon  this  earth.  When,  therefore,  any  medi- 
tative, thoughtful  man  reads  the  Scriptures  reverently,  unim- 
passionedly,  without  a  film  of  prejudice  over  his  eyes,  he  must 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  Christ,  beyond  all  doubt,  founded  a 
spiritual  kingdom  upon  this  earth,  and  that  that  kingdom  was 
so  founded. as  to  be  easily  recognized  by  all  men.  Now,  if  we 
once  let  into  our  minds  the  idea  that  the  Church  of  Christ  is  a 
kingdom,  we  must  at  once  admit  in  the  Church  an  organization 
which  is  necessary  for  every  kingdom  upon  this  earth.  And 
what  is  the  first  element  of  a  nation  ?  I  answer,  that  the  first 
element  of  a  nation  is  to  have  a  head  or  ruler.  Call  him  what 
you  will — elect  him  as  you  will.  Is  it  a  republic,  it  must  have 
a  president.  Is  it  a  monarchy,  it  must  have  its  king.  (  Is  it  an 
empire,  it  must  have  its  emperor  ;  and  so  on.  But  the  moment 
you  imagine  a  state  or  a  kingdom  of  any  kind  without  a  head, 
that  moment  you  destroy  out  of  your  mind  the  very  idea  of  a 
state  united  for  certain  purposes,  and  governed  by  certain  known 
and  acknowledged  ideas  called  laws.  That  head  of  the  nation 
must  be  the  supreme  tribunal  of  the  nation.  From  him,  in  his 
executive  office,  all  subordinate  officers  hold  their  power ;  and, 
even  though  he  be  elected  by  the  people  and  chosen  from  among 


The  Pope.  289 

the  people,  the  moment  he  is  set  at  the  head  of  the  state  or 
nation,  that  moment  he  is  the  representative  or  embodiment  of 
the  fountain  of  authority.  Every  one  wielding  power  within 
that  nation  must  bow  to  him.  Every  one  exercising  jurisdiction 
within  the  nation  must  derive  it  from  him.  He,  I  say  again, 
may  derive  it,  even,  frcm  the  choice  of  the  people ;  but 
when  he  is  thus  elevated  he  forms  one  unit,  to  which 
everything  in  the  state  is  bound  to  look  up.  This  te 
the  very  first  idea  and  notion  which  the  word  state  or 
kingdom  involves.  It  follows,  therefore,  that,  if  the  Church 
founded  by  Christ  be  a  kingdom,  the  Church  must  have 
a  head ;  and,  if  you  can  imagine  a  Church  without  a  head,  yet 
retaining  its  consistency,  its  strength,  its  unity,  and  its  useful- 
ness, for  any  purpose  for  which  it  was  created,  you  can  imagine 
a  thing  that  it  is  impossible  to  my  mind,  or  to  the  mind  of  any 
reasonable  man,  to  conceive.  Luther  imagined  it,  when  he  broke 
up  the  nations  of  the  earth  with  his  Protestant  heresy,  when  he 
rent  asunder  the  sacred  garment  of  unity  tha*  girded  the  fair 
form  of  the  holy  Church,  the  spouse  of  God.  Yet  when  he 
broke  up  the  Church,  he  was  obliged  to  establish  the  principle 
of  headship.  The  Church  of  England  had  her  head ;  the  Church 
of  Denmark  had  her  head  ;  that  is  to  say,  her  fountain  of  juris- 
diction, her  ruling  authority,  the  existence  of  which  in  all  these 
states  we  see,  with  at  least  the  appearance  of  religion,  kept  up 
— the  phantasm  of  a  real  church.  It  is  true,  my  friends,  when 
you  come  to  analyze  these  different  heads  that  spring  up  in  the 
different  Protestant  Churches  in  the  various  countries  of  Europe, 
we  shall  find  some  amongst  them,  that  I  believe  here,  in 
America,  would  be  called  "sore-heads."  Harry  the  Eighth 
was  a  remarkable  sore-head.  Perhaps,  if  he  had  got  a  good 
combing  from  the  Almighty  God  in  this  world,  he  would  not 
get  so  bad  a  combing  as  he  is,  in  all  probability,  receiving  where 
he  now  is. 

We  next  come  to  the  question :  Who  is  the  head  of  the 
Church  of  Christ?  Who  is  the  ruler?  Before  I  answer  this 
question,  my  friends,  I  will  ask  you  to  rise,  in  imagination  and 
thought,  to  the  grandeur  of  the  idea  that  filled  the  mind  and 
the  unfathomable  wisdom  of  God,  when  He  was  laying  the 
foundations  and  sinking  them  deeply  into  the  earth — the  foun- 
dations of  His  Church. 

19 


290  The  Pope. 

What  purpose  had  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  in  view,  that  He 
should  establish  the  Church  at  all  ?  He  answers,  and  tells  us 
emphatically,  that  He  had  two  distinct  purposes  in  view,  and 
that  it  was  the  destiny  of  the  Church  which  He  was  about  to 
found,  to  make  these  purposes  known  and  carry  them  out,  and 
with  the  extension  of  them  to  spread  herself  and  be  faithful  to 
them  unto  the  consummation  of  the  world.  What  were  these 
purposes  ?  The  first  of  these  was  to  enlighten  the  world  and 
dispel  darkness  by  the  light  of  her  teachings.  Wherefore  He 
said  to  His  Apostles,  "  You  are  the  light  of  the  world.  Let 
your  light  shine  before  men  that  all  men  may  see  your  works, 
and  seeing  you  may  give  glory  to  your  Father,  who  is  in  heaven." 
"  You  are  the  light  of  the  world,"  He  says.  A  man  does  not 
light  a  candle  and  put  it  under  a  bushel,  but  sets  it  upon  a 
candlestick,  that  it  may  illumine  the  whole  house,  and  that  all 
men  entering  may  behold  it.  So  1  say  unto  you,  you  are  the 
light  of  the  world  and  the  illumination  of  all  ages.  This  was 
the  first  purpose  for  which  Christ  founded  His  Church.  The 
world  was  in  darkness.  Every  light  had  beamed  upon  it,  but 
in  vain.  The  light  of  pagan  philosophy,  even  the  highest  human 
knowledge,  had  beamed  forth  from  Plato,  and  from  the  philoso- 
phers, but  it  was  unable  to  penetrate  the  thick  vail  that  over- 
shadowed the  intellect  and  the  genius  of  men,  and  to  illumine 
that  intelligence  with  one  ray  of  celestial  or  divine  truth. 
The  light  of  genius  had  beamed  upon  it.  The  noblest  works 
of  art  this  earth  ever  beheld  were  raised  before  the  admir- 
ing eyes  of  the  pagans  of  the  world,  but  neither  the  pencil  of 
1'raxiteles,  nor  the  chisel  of  Phidias,  bringing  forth  the  highest 
forms  of  artistic  beauty,  were  able  to  elevate  the  mind  of  the 
pagan  to  one  pure  thought  of  the  God  who  made  him.  Every 
human  light  had  tried  in  vain  to  dispel  this  thick  cloud  of  dark- 
ness. The  light  of  God  alone  could  do  it,  and  that  light  came 
with  Jesus  Christ  from  heaven.  Wherefore  He  said :  "  I  am 
the  light  of  the  world  ;  "  and  "  in  Him,"  says  the  Evangelist, 
"was  life,  and  the  life  was  the  light  of  men." 

The  next  mission  of  the  Church  was  not  only  to  illumine  the 
darkness,  but  to  heal  the  cor;  lption  of  the  world,  which  had 
grown  literally  rotten  in  the  festering  of  its  own  spiritual  ulcers, 
until  every  form  that  human  crime  can  take  was  not  only  estab- 
lished amongst  me/),  but  acknowledged  amongst  them — crowned 


The  Pope  291 

amongst  them  ;  not  only  acknowledged  and  avowed,  but  actually 
lifted  up  upon  their  altars  and  deified  in  the  midst  of  them,  so 
that  men  were  taught   to  adore  a  God — the  shameful  imper- 
sonation   of    their    own    licentiousness,   debauchery,   and   sin. 
Terrible  was  the  moral  condition  of  the  world  when  the  hand 
of  an  angry  God  was  forced  to  draw  back  the  flood-gates  of 
heaven  and  sweep  away  the  corruption  which  prevailed  through 
the  flesh,  until  the  spiritual  God  beheld   no  vestige  of  his  re- 
semblance left  in  man  !      Terrible  was    the   corruption    when 
the  same   hand  was  obliged  once  more  to  be  put  forth,  and 
down  from  heaven  came  a  rain  of  living  fire,  and  burned  up  a 
whole  nation  because  they  were  corrupt  !     Terrible   was   the 
corruption  when  the  Almighty  God   called   upon  every  pure- 
minded  man  to  draw  the  sword,  in  the  name  of  the  God  of 
Israel,   and  smite  his  neighbor  and   his   friend,   until  a  whole 
nation  was  swept  away  from  out  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel ! 
Christ  was  sent  as  our  head,  and  He  came  and  found  a  world 
one  festering  and  corrupt  ulcerous  sore ;   and   He  laid  upon  it 
the  saving  salve  of  His  mercy,  and  He  declared  that  He  was  the 
purifier  of  society  ;  and  to  His  disciples  He  said  :  You  are  not 
only  the  life  of  the  world  to  dispel  its  darkness,  but  you  are  the 
salt  of  the  earth  to  heal  and  sweeten  and  to  preserve  a  cor- 
rupt and  a  fallen  race  and  nature.     This  is  the  second  great 
mission  of  the  Church  of  God,  to  heal  with  her  sacramental 
touch,  to  purify  with  her  holy  grace,  to  wipe  away  the  corrup- 
tion of  the  world,  and  to  prevent  its  return  by  laying  the  heal- 
ing influence  of  Divine  grace  there.     This  is  the  mission  of  the 
Church  of  God — which  was  Christ's — to  be  unto  the  end  of  time 
the  light  of  the  world  and  the  salt  of  the  earth.     And  from 
this  twofold  office  of  the   Church  of  God,  I  argue  that    God 
Himself — the  God  who  founded  her,  the  God  who  established 
her  in  so  much  glory  and  for  so  high  and  holy  a  purpose,  the 
God  who  made  her  and  created  her,  His  fairest  and  most  beau- 
tiful work — that  God  must  remain  with  her,  and  be  her  true 
head  unto  the  end  of  time.  *And  why  ?     Who  is  the  light  of 
the  world  ?     I  am,  says  Jesus  Ch'ist.     Who  is  the  purifier  of 
the  world  ?     I  am,  responds  the  same  Christ.     If  then,  thou, 
Christ,  be  the  purifier  of  the  earth  and  the  light  of  the  world, 
tell  us,  O  Master,  can  light,  or  grace,  or  purity  come  from  any 
other  source  than  Thee?     He  answers.  No  ;  the  man  who  seeks 


292  The  Pope. 

it  but  in  Me  finds  for  his  light  darkness,  and  for  his  healing 
corruption  and  death.  The  man  who  plants  upon  any  othet 
soil  than  Me,  plants  indeed,  but  the  heavenly  Father's  hand 
shall  pluck  out  what  he  plants.  Christ,  therefore,  is  the  true 
head  of  His  Ch  arch,  the  abiding  head  of  His  Church,  the  un- 
failing, ever  wat;hful  head  of  His  Church,  and  is  as  much  to- 
day the  head  of  the  Church  as  He  was  eighteen  hundred  years 
ago.  Christ  to-day  is  the  real  head,  the  abiding  head.  He 
arose  from  the  dead  after  He  had  lain  three  days  in  darkness 
He  had  said  to  His  Apostles :  I  am  about  to  leave  you,  but  it 
will  only  be  for  a  little  ;  a  little  while  and  you  shall  not  see  Me 
any  more,  but  after  a  very  little  while  you  shall  see  Me  again, 
and  then  I  will  not  leave  you  orphans,  I  will  come  to  you 
again,  and  I  will  remain  with  you  all  days  unto  the  consumma- 
tion of  the  world.  Oh  !  my  friends,  what  a  consoling  thought 
this  unfailing  promise  of  the  words  of  the  Redeemer.  Oh ! 
what  a  consolation  has  this  world  in  Him  who  said :  "  Heaven 
and  earth  shall  pass  away,  but  My  Word  shall  never  pass  away : 
I  am  with  you  all  days  unto  the  consummation  of  the  world." 
And  how  is  He  with  us  ?  Is  He  with  us  visibly  ?  No.  Do  we 
behold  Him  with  our  eyes?  No.  Do  we  hear  His  own  im- 
mediate voice?  No.  Have  any  of  you  ever  seen  Him  or 
heard  Him  immediately  and  directly,  as  John  the  Evangelist 
saw  Him  when  He  was  upon  the  cross;  as  Mary  the  Magdalen 
heard  Him  when  He  said  to  her,  "  I  am  the  resurrection  and 
the  life  "  ?  No.  Yet  He  founded  a  visible  kingdom,  a  kingdom 
which  was  to  be  set  upon  the  earth,  as  a  candle  set  upon  the 
candlestick.  Therefore,  if  He  is  at  the  head  of  that  kingdom, 
if  He  is  to  preside  over  it,  if  He  is  to  rule  and  govern  it,  a 
visible  kingdom,  He  must  show  Himself  visibly.  This  He  does 
not.  In  His  second  and  abiding  coming  He  hides  Himself 
within  the  golden  gates  of  the  Tabernacle,  and  there  He  abides 
and  remains;  but  when  it  was  a  question  of  governing  His 
Church,  Christ  our  Lord  Himself  appointed  a  visible  head. 
And  who  was  this  ?  He  called  twelve  men  around  Him,  He 
gave  them  power  and  jurisdiction,  He  gave  them  the  glorious 
mission  of  the  apostleship ;  He  gave  them  a  communication  of 
His  own  spirit;  He  gave  them  inspiration.  He  breathed  His 
Holy  Spirit,  the  Third  Person  of  the  blessed  Trinity,  upon 
them,  and  He  took  one  of  the  twelve,  and  He  spoke  to  this 


The  Pope.  293 

one  man  three  most  important  words.  They  were  meant  for 
that  one  man  alone,  and  the  proof  is  that  on  each  occasion 
when  Christ  spake  to  them  He  called  the  twelve  around  Him, 
and  He  spoke  to  that  one  man  in  the  presence  of  the  other 
eleven,  that  there  might  be  eleven  witnesses  to  the  privileges 
and  the  power  of  the  one.  Who  was  that  one  man  ?  St. 
Peter.  St.  Peter  was  chosen  among  the  Apostles.  St.  Peter, 
not  up  to  that  time  the  one  that  was  most  loved,  for  John  was 
the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved ;  St.  Peter,  more  than  any  of  the 
other?,  was  reproved  by  his  Lord,  in  the  severest  terms ;  St. 
Peter,  more  than  any  of  the  others  who  remained  faithful, 
showed  his  weakness  until  the  confirming  power  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  came  upon  him.  Still  Peter  was  the  one  chosen,  and 
here  are  the  three  words  which  Christ  spoke.  First  of  all  He 
said,  "  Thou  art  Peter,  and  upon  this  rock  I  will  build  My 
Church."  Christ  heard  the  people  speaking  of  Him,  and  He 
said,  "  Who  do  they  say  I  am  ?"  and  the  Apostles  answered, 
"  Lord,  some  of  them  say  you  are  John  the  Baptist,  and  some 
of  them  say  you  are  Elias,  and  some  Jeremias,  or  one  of  the 
prophets."  Then  Christ  asked  them  solemnly,  "  Who  do  you 
say  I  am  ?"  Down  went  Peter  on  his  knees,  and  cried  out, 
"  Thou  art  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  Living  God."  Then  Christ, 
our  Lord,  said  to  him,  "  Blessed  art  thou,  Simon,  son  of  John, 
because  flesh  and  blood  hath  not  revealed  it  to  thee,  but  My 
Father,  who  is  in  heaven.  And  I  say  to  thee  that  thou  art 
Cephas,  and  upon  this  rock  I  will  build  My  Church."  The 
man  who  denies  to  Peter  the  glorious  and  wonderful  privilege 
of  being  the  visible  foundation  underlying  the  Church  of  God 
and  upholding  it,  is  untrue  to  Christ,  the  head  of  the  Church. 

The  second  word  that  the  Son  of  God  spoke  to  Peter  was 
'.his:  "To  thee,  O  Peter,"  He  says,  in  the  presence  of  the 
others,  "  to  thee,  O  Peter,  do  I  give  the  keys  of  the  kingdom 
of  heaven.  Whatsoever  thou  shalt  bind  upon  earth  shall  be 
bound  in  heaven,  and  whatsoever  thou  shalt  loose  upon  earth 
shall  be  loosed  in  heaven."  He  gave  his  promise  to  them  all, 
but  to  Peter  singly  He  said:  "  To  thee  do  I  give  the  keys  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven."  That  is  the  supreme  power  over  the 
Church. 

On  another  occasion,  Christ,  our  Lord,  spoke  to  Peter,  and 
the  others  were  present,  and  He  said  to  him,  "  Simon,  Simon, 


294  The  Pope. 

behold,  Satan  hath  desired  to  have  you,  that  he  may  sift  you  a.i 
wheat.  But  I  have  prayed  for  thee  that  thy  faith  fa  1  not;  and 
thou,  being  once  converted,  confirm  thy  brethren." 

Now,  any  man  who  denies  to  Peter,  in  the  Church,  that  eternal 
kingdom  that  is  never  to  come  to  an  end,  and  to  Peter  and  his 
successors,  the  power  over  his  brethren  to  confirm  them  in  the 
faith  which  shall  never  fail,  in  the  faith  which  was  the  subject 
of  the  prayer  of  the  Son  of  God  to  His  Father — any  man  who 
denies  this  supremacy  of  Peter  gives  the  lie  to  Jesus  Christ. 

Then,  on  another  solemn  occasion  the  Son  of  God  spoke  tc 
Peter,  when  He  was  preparing  to  bid  His  apostles  and  disciples  a 
last  farewell.  They  had  seen  Him  crucified  ;  they  had  seen  Him 
lie  disfigured,  mangled,  in  the  silent  tomb.  From  that  tomb, 
with  a  power  which  was  all  His  own,  He  rose  like  the  lightning  of 
God  to  the  heavens,  sending  before  Him,  howling  and  shrieking, 
all  the  demons  of  hell,  conquered  and  subdued. 

The  Apostles,  not  yet  fully  realizing  their  Master's  glory,  were 
sad  and  discouraged,  and  some  short  time  after,  the  Lord  ap- 
peared to  them  on  the  shores  of  the  Sea  of  Tiberias,  where  they 
had  fished  all  the  night,  but  caught  nothing.  "  There  were  to- 
gether Simon  Peter,  and  Thomas,  and  Nathaniel,  and  the  sons 
of  Zebedee,  and  two  others  of  His  disciples  ....  and 
Jesus  saith  to  Simon  Peter,  Simon,  son  of  John,  lovest  thou  Me 
more  than  these?  He  saith  to  Him,  yea,  Lord,  thou  knowest 
that  I  love  Thee.  He  saith  to  him,  feed  My  lambs.  He  saith 
to  him  again,  Simon,  son  of  John,  lovest  thou  Me?  He  saith  to 
Him,  yea,  Lord,  thou  knowest  that  I  love  thee.  He  saith  to 
him,  feed  My  lambs.  He  saith  to  him  the  third  time,  Simon, 
son  of  John,  lovest  thou  Me  ?  Peter  was  grieved  because  He  had 
said  to  him  the  third  time,  lovest  thou  Me  ?  and  he  said  to  Him, 
Lord,  thou  knowest  all  things ;  thou  knowest  that  I  love  thee. 
He  said  to  him,  feed  My  sheep."  Elsewhere  the  same  Redeemer 
said,  "  There  shall  be  but  one  fold  and  one  shepherd  ;"  and  He 
laid  His  hand  upon  the  head  of  Peter,  and  said,  "  Thou  art  Peter, 
the  son  of  John,  be  thou  the  shepherd  of  the  one  fold — feed 
My  lambs  and  feed  My  sheep."  He  who  denies,  therefore,  to 
Peter,  and  Peter's  successor,  whoever  he  is,  the  one  headship, 
the  one  office,  and  the  one  shepherd  in  the  one  fold  of  God, 
gives  the  lie  to  Jesus  Christ,  the  God  of  Truth. 

Well,  the  day  of  the  Ascension  came.     For  forty  days  did 


The  Pope.  29$ 

Christ  remain  discoursing  with  His  Apostles,  instructing  them 
concerning  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  when  the  forty  days  were 
over  He  led  them  forth  from  Jerusalem  into  the  silent,  beautiful 
Mountain  of  Olives,  and  there,  as  they  were  around  Him,  and 
He  was  speaking  to  them,  and  telling  them  of  things  concern- 
ing the  kingdom  of  God — that  is,  the  Church — slowly,  wonder- 
fully, majestically,  they  beheld  His  figure  rise  from  the  earth,  and 
as  it  arose  above  their  heads  it  caught  a  new  glory  and  splendor 
that  was  shed  down  upon  it  from  the  broken  and  the  rent  heavens 
above.  They  followed  Him  with  their  eyes.  They  saw  Him  pass 
from  ring  to  ring  of  light.  Their  ears  caught  the  music  of  the 
nine  choirs  of  heaven,  of  millions  of  angels  who  from  the 
clouds  saluted  the  coming  Lord.  They  strained  their  eyes  and 
their  hands  after  Him.  They  lifted  up  their  voices,  saying,  as 
did  Eliseus  of  old  to  Elias:  "Oh!  thou  chariot  of  Israel!  and 
its  charioteer,"  wilt  thou  leave  us?  And  from  the  clouds  that 
were  surrounding  Him  He  waved  to  them  His  last  blessing, 
and  their  straining  eyes  caught  the  last  lustre  and  brightness 
of  His  figure  as  it  disappeared  in  the  empyrean  of  heaven 
and  was  caught  up  to  the  throne  of  God.  Then  an  angel 
flashed  into  their  presence,  and  said,  "Ye  men  of  Galilee,  why 
stand  ye  looking  up  to  heaven ;  this  Jesus  who  is  taken  up  from 
you  into  heaven,  shall  so  come,  as  you  have  seen  Him  going 
into  heaven."  And  the  eleven  disciples  bent  their  knees  to 
Peter,  the  living  representative  of  the  supremacy,  the  truth,  and 
the  purity  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Henceforth  the  life  of  Peter,  and  of  Peter's  successor,  became 
the  great  leading  light,  around  which,  and  towards  which,  the 
whole  history  of  the  world  revolved.  It  became  the  central 
point,  to  which  everything  upon  this  earth  must  tend,  because, 
in  the  designs  of  God,  the  things  of  time  are  but  for  the  things 
of  eternity  ;  and  Peter,  in  being  the  representative  and  viceroy 
of  the  Son  of  God  upon  the  earth — in  the  external  headship 
and  government  of  the  Church — was  the  only  man  who  came 
nearest  to  God,  who  had  most  of  God  in  him,  and  most  of  God 
in  his  power — in  the  distribution  of  his  grace,  in  the  attributes 
that  belong  to  the  Saviour — and,  consequently,  became  the  first 
and  highest  and  greatest  of  men,  and  the  only  man  that  was 
necessary  in  this  world.  How  many  long  and  weary  years  Peter 
labored  in  his  Master's  cause,  watering  the  way  of  his  life  with 


296  Tkt  Pope. 

the  tears  of  an  abiding  sorrow ! — in  that,  in  an  hour  of  weak- 
ness, he  had  denied  Jesus  Christ,  until,  at  length,  many  years 
after  the  Saviour's  ascension  into  heaven,  an  old  man  was 
brought  forth  from  a  deep  dungeon  in  Rome.  There  were 
chains  upon  his  aged  limbs,  and  he  was  bowed  down  with  care 
and  with  austerity  to  the  very  earth.  The  few  white  hairs  upon 
his  head  fell  upon  his  aged  and  drooping  shoulders.  Meekly 
his  lips  murmured  as  in  prayer,  while  he  toiled  up  the  steep, 
rugged  side  of  one  of  the  seven  hills  of  Rome,  and  when  he 
had  gained  the  summit,  lo  !  as  in  Jerusalem,  many  years  before, 
there  was  a  cross  and  there  were  three  nails.  They  nailed  the 
aged  man  to  that  cross,  straining  his  time-worn  limbs,  until 
they  drove  the  nails  into  his  hands  and  feet,  and  then,  when  they 
were  about  to  lift  him,  a  faint  prayer  came  from  his  lips,  and  the 
crucified  man  said :  "  There  was  One  in  Jerusalem  whose  royal 
head  was  lifted  toward  heaven  upon  a  cross,  and  He  was  my 
Lord  and  my  God,  Jesus  Christ.  I  am  not  worthy,"  he  said, 
'  to  be  made  like  Him,  even  in  suffering,  and,  therefore,  I  pray 
you,  that  you  crucify  me  with  my  head  toward  the  earth,  from 
which  I  came."  And  so,  thus  elevated,  he  died,  and  the  first 
pope  passed  away.  For  three  hundred  years  pope  has  succeeded 
pope.  Peter  had  no  sooner  left  the  world  than  Linus  took  his 
sceptre  and  .governed  the  Church  of  God.  Though  down  in  the 
catacombs,  yet  he  governed  the  Church  of  God.  Every  bishop 
in  the  Church,  every  power  in  the  Church,  recognized  him  and 
obeyed  him  as  the  representative  of  God — the  living  head,  the 
earthly  viceroy  of  the  invisible  but  real  head,  Jesus  Christ. 
For  three  hundred  years  pope  after  pope  died,  and  sealed  his 
faith  in  the  Church  of  God  with  a  martyr's  blood  ;  and  then, 
after  three  hundred  years  of  dire  persecution,  the  Church  of  God 
was  free,  and  she  walked  the  earth  in  all  the  majesty  and  purity 
of  her  beauty.  In  the  fifth  century  the  Roman  Empire  yet  pre- 
served the  outward  form  of  its  majesty  and  power.  All  the 
nations  of  the  earth  bowed  to  Rome.  All  the  conquered  people 
looked  to  Rome  as  their  mistress,  and  as  the  centre  of  the 
world,  when,  suddenly,  from  the  forests  and  snows  of  the  North, 
poured  down  the  Huns,  the  Goths,  and  Visigoths,  in  countless 
thousands  and  hundreds  of  thousands.  The  barbarian  hordes 
sallied  from  their  fastnesses,  and,  led  by  their  savage  kings, 
broke  to  pieces  the  whole  Roman  Empire,  and  shattered  the 


The  Pope.  297 

whole  fabric  of  Pagan  civilization  to  atoms.  .  They  lode  rough- 
shod over  the  Roman  citizens  and  their  rulers,  burned  their 
palaces,  and  destroyed  whole  cities,  leaving  them  a  pile  of 
smoldering  ruins.  Every  vestige  of  ancient  Pagan  civilization 
and  power,  glory,  and  art,  and  science,  went  down  and  dis- 
appeared under  the  tramp  of  the  horses  of  Attila.  One  power, 
alone,  stood  before  these  ruthless  destroyers ;  one  power  alone 
opened  its  arms  to  receive  them ;  one  power  arrested  them  in 
their  career  of  blood  and  victory,  and  that  power  was  the 
Catholic  Church.  In  that  day,  says  a  Protestant  historian,  the 
Catholic  Church  saved  the  world,  and  out  of  these  rude  elements 
formed  the  foundation  of  the  civilization,  the  liberty,  and  the 
glory  which  is  our  portion  in  this  nineteenth  century.  In  the 
meantime  Rome  was  destroyed.  The  fairest  provinces  of  Gaul, 
Spain,  Italy,  and  Germany  were  overrun  by  the  barbarians,  and 
the  people  oppressed,  fathers  of  families  cut  off,  hearth-fires  ex- 
tinguished, and  the  blood  of  the  young  ravished  maiden  and  of 
the  weeping  mother  wantonly  shed.  The  people  in  their  agony 
cried  out  to  the  only  man  whom  the  barbarians  revered  and 
respected,  whom  the  whole  world  recognized  as  one  tinged  with 
divinity — the  Pope  of  Rome — the  cry  of  an  anguished  people 
went  forth  from  end  to  end  of  Italy ;  and  in  that  ninth  century 
the  cry  was,  Save  us  from  ruin !  Cover  us  with  the  mantle  of 
your  protection !  Be  thou  our  monarch  and  king !  and  then, 
and  then  only,  can  we  expect  to  be  saved  !  Then  did  the  Pope 
of  Rome  clothe  himself  with  a  new  power,  independent  of  that 
which  he  had  received  already,  and  which  was  recognized  from 
the  beginning — namely,  that  temporal  power  and  sovereignty, 
that  crown  of  a  monarch,  that  place  at  the  council-chambers  of 
kings,  that  voice  in  the  guidance  of  nations,  and  in  the  influenc- 
ing of  the  destinies  of  the  material  world,  which,  for  century 
after  century,  he  exercised,  but  which  we,  in  our-day,  have  seen 
him  deprived  of,  by  the  hands  of  those  who  have  plucked  the 
kingly  crown  from  his  aged  and  venerable  brow.  How  did  he 
exercise  that  power  ?  Ho.w  did  he  wear  that  crown  ?  What  posi- 
tion does  he  hold,  as  his  figure  rises  up  before  the  vision  of  the 
student  of  history,  looking  back  into  the  past,  and  beholding  him 
as  he  passes  amongst  the  long  file  of  kings  and  warriors  of  the 
earth  !  Oh,  my  friends,  no  sword  dripping  with  blood  is  seen  in  the 
hand  of  the  Pope-King,  but  only  the  sceptre  of  justice  and  of 


298  The  Pope. 

law.  No  cries  of  a  suffering  and  afflicted  people  surround  him, 
but  only  the  blessings  of  peace  and  of  a  delighted  and  consoled 
world.  No  blood  follows,  flowing  in  the  path  of  his  progress. 
That  path  is  strewn  with  the  tears  of  those  who  wept  with  joy 
at  his  approach,  and  with  the  flowers  of  peace  and  of  content- 
ment. He  used  his  power — and  history  bears  me  out  when  I 
say  it — the  power  which  was  providentially  put  into  his  hands, 
by  which  he  was  made  not  only  a  king  among  kings,  but  the 
first  recognized  monarch  in  Christendom,  and  the  king,  highest 
among  kings,  and  the  man  whose  voice  governed  the  kings  of 
the  earth,  convened  their  councils,  directed  their  course,  re- 
proving them  in  their  errors,  and  restraining  them  from  shed- 
ding the  blood  of  their  people,  and  from  the  commission  of 
other  injustices — all  these  powers  he  used  for  the  good  of  God's 
people.  He  used  that  power  for  a  thousand  years  for  pur 
poses  of  clemency,  of  law,  of  justice,  and  of  freedom.  When 
Spain  and  Portugal,  in  the  zenith  of  their  power,  each  com- 
manding mighty  armies,  were  about  to  draw  the  sword  and  de- 
vastate the  fair  plains  of  Castile  and  Andalusia,  the  pope  came 
in  and  said,  "  Mighty  kings  though  you  be,  I  will  not  permit 
you  to  shed  the  blood  of  your  people  in  an  unnecessary  war." 
When  Philip  Augustus,  of  France,  at  the  height  of  his  power, 
and  when  he  was  the  strongest  king  in  Christendom,  wished  to 
repudiate  his  lawful  wife  and  to  take  another  one  in  her  stead, 
the  injured  woman  appealed  to  Rome,  and  from  Rome  came  the 
voice  of  Rome's  king,  saying  to  him,  "  Oh,  monarch,  great  and 
mighty  as  thou  art,  if  thou  doest  this  injustice  to  thy  married 
wife,  and  scandalize  the  world  by  thine  impurity,  I  will  send  the 
curse  of  God  and  of  His  Church  upon  you,  and  cut  you  off  like 
a  rotten  branch  from  among  the  community  of  kings."  When 
Henry  VIII.,  of  England,  wished  to  put  away  from  him  the  pure 
and  high-minded  and  lawful  mother  of  his  children,  because  his 
licentious  eyes  had  fallen  upon  a  younger  and  fairer  form  than  hers, 
the  Pope  of  Rome  said  to  him  :  "  If  you  commit  this  iniquity,  if 
you  repudiate  your  lawful  wife,  if  you  set  up  the  principle  that 
because  you  are  a  king  you  can  violate  the  law,  if  no  power  in 
your  own  country  is  able  to  bring  you  to  account  for  it,  my  hand 
will  come  down  upon  you,  and  I  will  cut  you  off  from  the  com- 
mur  ion  of  the  faithful,  and  fling  you,  with  the  curse  of  God 
upon  you,  out  upon  the  world."     And  I  say  that  in  such  facts 


The  Pope.  294 

as  these — and  I  might  multiply  them  by  the  hundred — the  pope 
of  Rome  used  his  temporal  sovereignty  and  his  kingly  power 
among  the  nations  in  establishing  the  sacred  cause  of  human 
liberty.  I  speak  of  human  liberty.  I  thank  my  God  that  I  am 
breathing  an  air  in  which  a  free  man  may  speak  the  language  of 
'  freedom. 

I  have  a  right  to  speak  of  freedom,  for  I  am  the  child  of  a 
race  that  for  eight  hundred  years  have  been  martyred  in  the 
sacred  cause  of  freedom.  Never  did  a  people  love  it,  since  the 
world  was  created,  as  the  children  of  Ireland,  who  enjoy  it  less 
than  all  the  nations.  I  can  speak  this  night,  but  rather  with 
the  faltering  voice  of  an  infant  than  with  the  full  swelling  tones 
of  a  man,  for  I  have  loved  thee,  O  Mother  Liberty.  Thy  fair 
face  was  veiled  from  mine  eyes  from  the  days  of  my  childhood. 
I  longed  to  see  the  glistening  of  thy  pure  eyes,  O  Liberty.  I 
never  saw  it  until  I  set  my  foot  upon  the  soil  of  glorious  young 
Columbia.  And  there,  rising  out  of  this  great  western  ocean, 
like  Aphrodite  of  old  from  the  foam  of  the  rolling  billows,  I  be- 
held thee,  goddess,  in  all  thy  beauty,  and  as  a  priest,  as  well  as 
an  Irishman,  I  bow  down  to  thee.  But  what  is  liberty  ?  Does 
it  consist  in  every  man  having  a  right  to  do  as  he  likes  ?  Why, 
if  it  does,  it  would  remind  one  of  the  liberty  that  a  man  took 
with  another  in  Ireland.  He  took  the  liberty  to  go  into  the 
man's  house,  and  to  sit  down  without  being  asked.  And  he 
took  the  liberty  to  make  free  with  the  victuals,  and,  at  last,  the 
man  of  the  house  was  obliged  to  take  the  liberty  of  kicking  him 
down-stairs.  No,  my  friends,  this  is  not  liberty.  The  quint- 
essence of  freedom  lies  not  in  the  power  of  every  man  to  do 
what  he  likes,  but  that  quintessence  of  freedom  and  liberty  lies 
in  every  man  having  his  rights  clearly  defined.  No  matter  who 
he  is,  from  the  first  to  the  last,  from  the  humblest  to  the  highest 
in  the  community,  let  every  man  know  his  own  rights.  Let  him 
know  what  power  he  has  and  what  privileges.  Give  him  every 
reasonable  freedom  and  liberty,  and  secure  that  to  him  by  law, 
and  then,  when  you  have  secured  every  man's  rights  and  defined 
them  by  law,  make  every  man  in  the  State,  from  the  highest  to 
the  lowest,  from  the  president  down  to  the  poorest,  the  greatest 
and  the  noblest,  as  well  as  the  humblest  and  the  meanest — let 
every  man  be  obliged  to  bow  down  before  the  omnipotence  of 
the  law.     A  people  that  knows  its  rights,  a  people  that  has  its 


300  The  Pope, 

rights  thus  defined,  a  people  that  is  resolved  to  assert  the  omni- 
potence  of  those  rights — that  people  can  never  be  enslaved. 
Now,  is  not  this  the  definition  of  liberty?  I  am  sure  that  it 
comes  home  like  conviction  to  every  man  in  this  house.  Let 
me  know  what  rights  I  have,  and  let  no  man  be  allowed  tc 
infringe  upon  them.  Give  me  every  reasonable  right,  and  when 
1  have  these,  secure  them  to  me,  and  keep  away  from  me  every 
man  that  dares  to  impede  me  in  the  exercise  of  them,  that  I  may 
exercise  them  freely,  and  I  then  enjoy  the  glorious  gift  of  free- 
dom. 

Now  I  ask  you,  Who  is  the  father  of  this  liberty  that  we  enjoy 
to-day  ? — who  is  the  father  of  it,  if  not  the  man  who  stood  be- 
tween the  barbarian,  coming  down  to  waste,  with  fire  and 
sword — to  abolish  the  law,  to  abolish  the  government  and 
destroy  the  people — the  man  that  stood  between  him  and  the 
people  and  said :  "  Let  us  make  laws,  and  you  respect  them,  and 
I  will  get  the  people  to  respect  them."  That  man  was  the  Pope 
of  Rome.  Who  was  that  man,  that,  for  a  thousand  years,  as  a 
crowned  monarch,  was  the  veiy  impersonation  of  the  principle 
of  law,  but  the  pope  ?  Who  was  the  man  that  was  equally 
ready  to  crush  the  poor  man  and  the  rich  man,  the  king  and 
the  people — to  crush  them  by  the  weight  of  his  authority  when 
they  violated  that  law  and  refused  to  recognize  that  palladium 
ot  human  liberty?  It  was  the  Pope  of  Rome.  Who  was  the 
man  whose  genius  inspired  and  whose  ability  contributed  to  the 
foundation  and  the  very  institutions  of  the  Italian  republics  and 
of  the  ancient  liberties  of  Spain  in  the  early  middle  ages  ?  Who 
was  the  man  that  protected  them  from  the  tyranny  of  the  cruel, 
lawless  barons,  entrenched  in  their  castles?  He  was  the  man 
whose  house  was  a  sanctuary  for  the  weak  and  persecuted,  who 
surrounded  that  house  with  all  the  censures  and  vengeance  of 
the  Church  against  any  one  who  would  violate  its  sanctity. 
Who  labored,  by  degrees,  patiently,  for  more  than  a  thousand 
years,  until  he  at  length  succeeded  in  elaborating  the  principles 
of  modern  freedom  and  modern  society  from  out  the  chaotic 
ruin  and  confusion  of  these  ages  of  barbarism  ?  Who  was  he  ? 
— the  father  of  civilization — the  father  of  the  world?  History 
asserts,  and  asserts  loudly,  that  he  was  the  royal  Pope  of  Rome. 
And  now  the  gratitude  of  the  world  has  been  to  shake  hig 
ancient  and  time-honored  throne,  and  to  pluck  the  kingly  crown 


The  Pope.  301 

from  his  brow  in  his  old  age,  after  seventy  years  of  usefulness 
and  of  glory,  and  to  confine  him  a  prisoner,  practically,  in  the 
Vatican  Palace  in  Rome.  A  prisoner,  I  say,  practically,  for  how 
can  he  be  considered  other  than  a  prisoner,  who  cannot  go  out 
of  his  palace  into  the  streets  of  the  city,  without  hearing  the 

1  ribaldry,  the  profanity,  the  obscenity,  and  the  blasphemy,  to 
which  his  aged,  pure,  and  virgin  ears  had  never  lent  themselves 
for  a  moment  of  his  life.  Yes — he  is  unthroned,  but  not  dis- 
honored ;  uncrowned,  but  not  dishonored  ;  not  uncrowned  by  the 
wish  of  his  own  people,  I  assert,  for  I  have  lived  for  twervr 
years  amidst  them,  and  I  know  that  he  never  oppressed  them 
He  never  drove  them  forth — the  youth  of  his  subjects — to  be 
slaughtered  on  the  battle-field,  because  he  had  some  little  enmity 
or  jealousy  against  his  fellow-monarch.  He  never  loaded  them 
with  taxes  nor  oppressed  them  until  life  became  too  heavy  to 
bear.  Uncrowned  indeed,  but  not  dishonored,  though  we  behold 
him  seated  in  the  desolate  halls  of  the  once  glorious  Vatican 
abandoned  by  all  human  help,  and  by  the  sympathy  of  nearlj 
all  the  world  !  But  upon  those  aged  brows  there  rests  a  crown 
— a  triple  crown,  that  no  human  hand  can  ever  pluck  from  his 
brow,  because  that  crown  has  been  set  on  that  head  by  the  hand 
of  Jesus  Christ  and  by  His  Church.  That  triple  crown,  my 
friends,  is  the  crown  of  spiritual  supremacy,  the  crown  of  infalli- 
bility, and  the  crown  of  perpetuity.  In  the  day  when  Christ 
said  to  Peter,  "Confirm  thou  thy  brethren;  feed  My  lambs  and 
feed  My  sheep ;  to  thee  do  I  give  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven " — in  that  day  He  made  Peter  supreme  among  the 
Apostles.  His  words  meant  this,  or  they  meant  nothing. 
Peter  wielded  that  sceptre  of  supremacy,  and  nothing  is  more 
clearly  pointed  out  in  the  subsequent  inspired  history  of  the 
Church,  as  recorded  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  than  the  fact 

,  that  when  Peter  spoke  every  other  man,  Apostle  or  otherwise, 
was  silent,  and  accepted  Peter's  word  as  the  last  decision,  from 
which  there  was  no  appeal.  Never,  in  the  Church  of  God,  has 
Peter's  successor  ceased  to  assert  broadly,  emphatically,  and 
practically  this  primacy.  Never  was  a  council  convened  in  the 
Catholic  Church  except  on  the  commands  of  the  pope.  Never 
did  a  council  of  bishops  presume  to  sit  down  and  deliberate 
upon  matters  of  faith  and  morals  except  under  the  guidance  and 
in  the  presence  of  the  pope,  either  personally  there,  or  there  by 


ST.  LOUIS   h.  S.  LIB 

.jS  BOYS'    DEPT. 


302  The  Pope. 

his  officers  or  legates.  Never  was  a  letter  read  at  the  opening 
of  any  council — and  they  were  constantly  sent  to  each  succeed- 
ing council — that  the  bishops  of  the  Church  did  not  rise  up  and 
proclaim,  "  We  hear  the  voice  of  the  Pope,  which  is  the  voice 
of  Peter,  and  Peter's  voice  is  the  echo  of  the  voice  of  Jesus 
Christ."  Never  did  any  man  in  the  Church  of  God  presume  to 
appeal  from  the  tribunal  of  the  pope,  even  to  the  Church  in 
council,  without  having  the  taint  of  heresy  affixed  upon  him, 
and  the  curse  of  disobedience  and  schism  put  upon  him. 

Noyr,  for  centuries  it  has  been  the  recognized  principle  of  the 
Catholic  Church  that  no  man  can  lawfully  appeal  to  any  tribunal 
from  the  decision  of  the  Pope  in  matters  spiritual  or  in  matters 
touching  faith  and  morality,  because  there  is  no  tribunal  to 
appeal  to  above  him  save  that  of  God.  He  represents,  as  the 
visible  head  of  the  Church,  the  invisible  head,  who  is  no  other 
than  Jesus  Christ.  The  consequence  is  that  the  Church  is  a 
kingdom,  like  every  other  state,  has  its  last  grand  tribunal,  just 
like  the  House  of  Lords  in  England,  the  High  Court  of  Justice 
at  Washington,  from  which  there  is  no  appeal.  What  follows 
from  this  ?  There  is  no  appeal  from  the  pope's  decision.  There 
never  has  been.  Is  the  Church  bound  to  abide  by  that  decision  ? 
Most  certainly,  for  history  proves  it  in  every  age.  Never  has 
any  man  risen  against  the  pope's  decisions  without  being 
branded  as  one  tainted  with  htresy,  and  cut  off  from  the  Church. 
Is  the  Church  bound  to  abide  by  his  decision  ?  Certainly,  be- 
cause the  Church  is  bound  in  obedience  to  her  head,  and  one 
man  alone  can  command  the  obedience  of  the  Church  and  the 
duty  of  submission,  and  that  man  has  been  the  Pope.  He  has 
always  commanded  it,  and  no  one  has  dared  to  appeal  from  his 
decision,  because,  as  I  said  before,  he  is  the  viceroy,  the  visible 
head  of  the  church,  and  in  whom,  officially,  is  the  voice  of 
Jesus  Christ  present  with  His  Church. 

Now  what  follows  from  this,  my  friends  ?  If  it  be  true  that 
the  Church  of  God  can  never  believe  a  lie,  if  it  be  true  that  she 
can  never  be  called  by  a  voice  that  she  is  bound  to  obey  to 
accept  a  lie,  if  it  be  true  that  nothing  false  in  doctrine  or  un- 
sound in  morality  can  ever  be  received  by  the  Church  of  God, 
or  ever  be  imposed  upon  her — for  He  said,  who  founded  her, 
"  The  gates  of  hell  shall  never  prevail  against  My  Church'  — 
then  it  follows,  that  if  there  be  no  appeal  from  the  pope's  de- 


The  Pope,  303 

cision,  but  only  submission  on  the  part  of  the  Church,  it  follows 
that  the  pope,  when  he  speaks  as  the  head  of  the  Church,  when 
he  preaches  to  the  whole  Church,  when  he  bears  witness  to  the 
Church's  belief  and  to  the  Church's  morality,  when  he  propounds 
certain  doctrine  to  her — upon  a  body  that  can  never  believe  a 
lie,  that  can  never  act  upon  a  lie,  whose  destiny  it  is  to  remain 
pure  in  doctrine  and  in  morality — pure  as  the  Son  of  God  who 
created  her — it  follows,  that  when  the  pope  propounds  that  doc- 
trine to  the  Church,  he  cannot  propound  a  lie  to  her,  or  force 
that  lie  upon  her  belief;  that  the  same  spirit  of  truth  which 
preserves  the  body  preserves  the  head,  and  that  the  pope,  as 
head  of  the  Church,  is  infallible. 

In  other  words,  the  pope  may  make  a  mistake.  If  he  write 
a  book  as  a  private  author,  he  may  put  something  in  it  that  is 
not  true.  If  he  propound  certain  theories  unconnected  with 
faith  and  morals,  he  may  be  as  mistaken  as  you  or  I  ;  but  the 
moment  the  pope  stands  up  before  the  holy  Church  of  God,  and 
says,  "  This  is  the  Church's  belief,  this  has  been  from  the  be- 
ginning her  belief,  this  is  her  tradition,  this  is  her  truth,"  then 
he  cannot,  under  such  circumstances,  teach  the  Catholic  Church, 
the  spouse  of  Jesus  Christ,  a  lie.  Consequently,  he  is  infallible. 
I  do  not  give  the  Church's  infallibility  as  the  intrinsic  reason  of 
papal  infallibility,  but  I  say  this,  that  if  any  reasoning  man  ad- 
mits that  Christ  founded  an  infallible  Church,  it  follows  of 
necessity  that  he  must  admit  an  infallible  head.  It  was  but 
three  or  four  days  ago  that  I  was  disputing  with  a  Unitarian 
minister,  a  man  of  intelligence  and  of  deep  learning,  as  clever  a 
man,  almost,  as  I  ever  met,  and  he  said  to  me,  "  If  I  once  ad- 
mitted that  the  Church  was  infallible,  that  she  could  not  err, 
that  moment  I  would  have  to  admit  the  infallibility  of  the  pope  ; 
for  how  on  earth  can  you  imagine  a  Church  that  cannot  err 
bound  to  believe  a  man  that  commands  her  to  believe  a  lie  ? 
It  is  impossible  ;  it  is  absurd  upon  the  face  of  it."  And  so,  my 
friends,  it  has  ever  been  the  belief  and  faith  of  the  Catholic 
Church  that  the  pope  is  preserved  by  the  same  spirit  of  truth 
that  preserves  the  Church.  But  you  will  ask  me,  "  If  this  be 
the  case,  tell  me  how  is  it  that  it  was  only  three  or  four  years 
ago  that  the  Church  declared  that  the  pope  was  infallible?"  I 
answer,  that  the  Catholic  Church  cannot — it  is  not  alone  that 
she  will  not,  but  she  cannot  teach— anything  new,  anything  un- 


304  The  Pope. 

heard  of.  She  cannot  find  a  truth,  as  it  were,  as  a  man  would 
find  a  guinea  under  a  stone.  She  cannot  go  looking  for  new 
ideas,  and  saying,  "Ah,  I  find  this  is  new!  Did  you  ever  heai 
of  it  before  ?"  The  Church  cannot  say  that.  She  has,  from  the 
beginning,  the  full  deposit  of  Catholic  truth  in  her  hand  ;  she 
has  it  in  her  instinct ;  she  has  it  in  her  mind ;  but  it  is  only  now 
and  then,  when  a  sore  emergency  is  put  upon  her  and  she  can- 
not help  it,  that  the  Church  of  God  declares  this  truth  or  that, 
or  the  other,  which  she  has  always  believed  to  be  a  revelation 
of  God,  and  crystallizes  her  faith  and  belief  and  tradition  in  the 
form  of  dogmatic  definition.  Which  of  us  doubts  that  the  very 
foundation  of  the  Catholic  Church  rests  upon  the  belief  that 
Christ  our  Lord,  the  Redeemer,  was  the  Son  of  God  ?  It  is  the 
very  foundation-stone  of  Christianity.  This  has  been  the  es- 
sence of  all  religion  since  the  Son  of  God  became  man,  and  yet, 
my  friends,  for  three  hundred  years  the  Catholic  Church  had  not 
said  a  single  word  about  the  divinity  of  Christ,  and  it  was  after 
three  hundred  years  when  a  man  named  Arius  rose  up  and  said, 
"  It  is  all  a  mistake  ;  the  son  of  Mary  is  not  the  Son  of  God. 
He  who  suffered  and  died  on  the  cross  was  not  the  Son  of  God, 
but  a  mere  man."  Then,  after  three  hundred  years,  the  Church 
turned  around  and  said,  "  If  any  man  says  that  Jesus  Christ  is 
not  God,  let  that  man  be  accursed  as  an  infidel  and  a  heretic." 
Would  any  of  you  say,  "  Then  it  seems  that  for  three 
hundred  years  the  Church  did  not  believe  it."  She  always 
believed  it ;  it  was  always  her  foundation-stone.  "  If  she 
did  believe  it,  why  didn't  she  define  it?"  I  answer,  the 
occasion  had  not  arisen.  It  is  only  when  some  bold 
invader,  when  some  proud,  heretical  man,  when  some  bad 
spirit  manifests  itself  among  the  people,  that  the  Church 
is  obliged  to  come  out  and  say :  "  Take  care !  take  care ! 
Remember  this  is  the  faith,"  and  then  when  she  declares 
her  faith  it  becomes  a  dogmatic  definition,  and  all  Catho- 
lics are  bound  to  bow  to  it.  Need  I  tell  you,  Irish  maids,.  Irish 
mothers,  and  Irish  men — need  I  tell  you  how  Patrick  preached 
of  the  woman  whom  he  called  Muire  Mathaire,  "  Mary 
Mother,"  the  woman  whom  he  called  the  Virgin  of  God? 
Need  I  tell  you  that  the  Church  always  believed  that  that 
woman  was  the  Mother  of  God  ?  And  yet  you  will  be  sur- 
prised to  hear  that  at  the  time  that  Patrick  preached  to  the  Irish 


The  Pope.  305 

people'the  Church  had  .not  yet  defined  it  as  an  article  of  fai*h. 
It  was  only  in  the  fifth  century  that  the  Church  at  Ephesus  de- 
clared dogmatically  that  Mary  was  the  Mother  of  God.  Didn't 
she  believe  it  before  ?  Certainly.  It  was  no  new  thing  ;  she 
always  believed  it,  but  there  was  no  necessity  to  assert  it  until 
heretics  denied  it.  Then,  to  guard  her  children  from  the  error 
which  was  being  asserted,  she  had  to  define  her  faith.  Did  not 
the  Church  always  believe  the  presence  of  Christ  transubstan- 
tiated in  the  Eucharist  ?  Most  certainly.  All  history  tells  us 
that  she  believed  it.  Her  usages,  her  ceremonies,  everything 
in  her  points  to  that  Divine  Presence  as  their  life  and  centre, 
but  it  was  sixteen  hundred  years  before  the  Church  defined 
transubstantiation  as  an  article  of  faith,  and  then  only  because 
Calvin  denied  it.  He  was  the  first  heretic  to  deny  it.  It  was 
denied  by  Berengarius,  a  learned  man  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
but  he  immediately  repented,  and  burned  his  book,  and  there 
was  an  end  of  it ;  but  the  first  man  to  preach  a  denial  of  the 
real  presence  of  Christ  was  Calvin.  Luther  never  did.  We 
must  give  the  devil  his  due.  The  Church  of  God  declared  that 
Christ  was  present,  and  that  the  substance  of  bread  and  wine 
was  changed  into  the  body  and  blood  of  the  Lord.  And  so  in 
our  day  the  Church  for  the  first  time  found  it  necessary  to  de- 
clare that  her  head,  her  visible  head,  cannot  teach  her  a  lie.  It 
seems  such  an  outrage  upon  common  sense  to  deny  this,  it 
seems  so  palpable  and  plain,  from  the  very  constitution  of  the 
Church,  that  it  seems  as  if  the  definition  of  this  dogma  were 
unnecessary.  Yet  in  truth  it  was  to  meet  the  proud,  self-as- 
serting, cavilling,  questioning  spirit  of  our  day  that  the  Church 
was  obliged  to  do  this.  It  was  because,  guided  by  a  wise 
Providence,  and  scarcely  knowing,  yet  foreseeing  that  which 
was  to  come,  that  the  Pope  was  to  be  deprived  of  all  the  pres- 
tige of  his  temporal  power;  that  all  that  surrounded  him  in 
Rome  was  to  be  lost  to  him  for  a  time ;  that  perhaps  it  was  his 
destiny  to  be  driven  out  and  exiled,  and  a  stranger  amongst 
other  men  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  so  that  he  might  be  un- 
known, lost  sight  of,  that  the  Church  of  God,  with  her  eight 
hundred  bishops,  rising  up  in  the  strength  of  her  guiding  spirit, 
fixed  upon  the  brow  of  her  pontiff  the  seal  of  her  faith  in  his 
infallibility,  that  wherever  he  goes,  wherever  he  is  found,  what- 
ever misfortunes  may  be  his  lot,   he  will  still  have  that  seil 

20 


306  The  Pope. 

upon  him  which  no  other  man  can  bear,  and  which  is  the  stamp 
of  the  head  of  the  Catholic  Church. 

And  now,  my  friends,  we  come  to  the  last  circle  of  that 
spiritual  tiara  that  rests  upon  the  brow  of  Pius  the  Ninth.  It 
is  the  crown  of  perpetuity.  There  is  no  man  necessary  in  this 
world  but  one.  We  are  here  to-day,  we  die  to-morrow,  and 
others  take  our  places.  The  kings  of  the  earth  are  not  neces- 
sary. Sometimes,  Lord  knows,  it  would  be  as  well  if  they  did 
not  exist  at  all.  The  statesmen  and  philosophers  of  the  earth 
are  not  necessary.  My  friends,  the  politicians  of  to-day  are 
scarcely  a  necessity.  We  might  manage,  by  a  little  engineering, 
and  above  all  by  a  little  more  honesty,  to  get  on  without  them, 
and  find  perhaps  a  few  dollars  more  in  our  pockets.  One  man 
alone  was  necessary  to  this  world  from  the  beginning,  and  that 
one  man  was  the  man  whom  we  behold  upon  the  cross  on  Good- 
Friday  morning — He  alone.  Without  Him  we  were  all  lost ;  no 
grace,  but  sin ;  no  purity,  but  corruption ;  no  heaven,  but  hell. 
He  was  necessary  from  the  beginning,  and  the  only  man  that  is 
now  necessary  upon  the  earth  is  the  man  that  represents  Him. 
We  cannot  get  on  without  him.  The  Church  must  have  her 
head,  and  He  who  declared  that  the  Church  was  to  last  unto 
the  end  of  time  will  take  good  care  to  keep  her  head.  He  is 
under  the  hand  of  God  ;  and  under  the  hand  of  the  Ruler  of 
the  Church  we  may  well  afford  to  leave  him.  He  will  take 
good  care  of  him.  As  a  temporal  ruler,  I  assert  still  that 
the  pope  is  the  only  necessary  ruler  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 
He  is  necessary,  because,  not  establishing  his  power  by  the 
sword,  not  preserving  it  by  the  sword,  not  enlarging  his  do- 
minions by  the  sword,  by  injustice  as  a  monarch ;  as  a  king  he 
represents  the  principle  of  right  unprotected  by  might,  and  of 
justice  and  law,  enthroned  by  the  common  consent  of  all  the 
nations. 

In  the  day  when  might  shall  assume  the  place  of  right ;  in  the 
day  when  a  man  cannot  find  two  square  feet  of  earth  on  which 
to  build  a  throne,  without  bloodshed  and  injustice ;  in  that  day, 
when  it  comes,  the  pope  will  no  longer  be  necessary  as  a  tem- 
poral sovereign ;  but  pray  God,  that  before  that  day  comes,  you 
and  I  be  in  our  graves,  for  when  that  day  comes,  if  ever  it  comes, 
life  will  be  no  blessing,  and  existence  upon  this  earth  will  be  a 
curse  rather  than  a  joy.     The  pope  is  necessary,  because  some 


The  Pope.  307 

power  is  needed  to  stand  between  the  kings  and  their  people  , 
some  power  before  which  kings  must  bow  down  ;  some  voice 
recognized  by  them  as  the  voice,  not  of  a  subject,  not  of  an 
ordinary  man,  or  an  ordinary  bishop,  a  voice  as  of  a  king 
amongst  kings;  some  voice  which  will  confound  the  jealousies, 
and  passions,  and  scandals  of  the  rulers  of  the  earth,  which  only 
serve  as  so  many  means  to  shed  the  blood  of  the  people. 

Our  best  security  is  the  crown  that  rests  upon  the  brow  of  a 
peaceful  king.  Our  best  security  is  the  crown  that  rests  upon 
the  brow  of  a  man  who  was  always  and  ever  ready  to  shield  the 
weak  from  the  powerful,  and  to  save  to  woman  her  honor,  her 
dignity,  her  place  in  the  family,  her  maternity,  from  the  treach- 
ery, and  the  villany,  and  the  inconstancy  of  man ;  to  break  the 
chains  of  the  slave,  and  to  prepare  him  before  emancipation 
for  the  glorious  gift  of  freedom.  This  power  is  the  pope's,  and 
he  has  exercised  it  honestly  and  well.  Protestant  historians 
will  tell  that  the  pope  was  the  father  of  liberty,  that  he  was  the 
founder  of  modern  civilization,  and  that  the  crown  that  was 
upon  his  head  was  the  homage  paid  by  the  nations  to  clemency 
and  mercy,  and  justice  and  law.  And,  therefore,  he  must  come 
back ;  he  must  come  and  seat  himself  upon  the  throne  again. 
The  day  will  come  when  all  the  Christians  in  the  world  will  be 
desirous  of  this,  and  when  that  day  comes,  and  not  till  then, 
justice  shall  be  once  more  tempered  by  mercy;  absolutism 
shall  be  once  more  neutralized  by  the  constitutional  liberties 
and  privileges  of  the  people.  When  that  day  comes,  the  people 
on  their  side  will  feel  the  strong  yet  quiet  restraining  hand,  en- 
forcing the  law  ;  while  the  kings,  on  their  side,  will  behold  once 
more  the  now  hated  and  detested  vision  of  the  hand  of  the 
pontiff  brandishing  the  thunders  of  the  Vatican. 

That  day  must  come,  and  with  it  will  come  the  dawn  of  a 
better  day,  and  of  peace.  And  I  believe,  even  now,  in  this 
future  day,  in  this  coming  year,  when  we  shall  behold  the  Pope 
of  Rome  advancing  at  the  head  of  all  the  rulers  of  the  earth, 
and  pointing  out,  with  sceptred  hand,  the  way  of  justice,  of 
mercy,  of  truth,  and  of  freedom  ;  we  shall  behold  him  when  all 
the  nations  of  the  earth  shall  greet  his  return  to  power,  shall 
^reet  his  entry  into  the  council-chambers  of  their  sovereigns, 
even  as  the  Jews  greeted  the  entry  of  Jesus  Christ  into  Jeru- 
salem   and  hailed  him   king.      I   behold   him,  when,  foremost 


3o8  The  Pope. 

among  the  nations  that  shall  greet  him  in  that  hour,  a  sceptred 
monarch  and  crowned  king,  a  ruler  temporal,  and,  far  more,  a 
spiritual  father,  the  mighty,  the  young,  the  glorious,  and  the 
free  America  will  present  herself.  When  this  land,  so  mighty 
in  its  extent  and  the  limits  of  its  power  that  it  cannot  afford  to 
be  anything  else  than  Catholic, — for  no  other  faith  can  be  com- 
mensurate with  so  mighty  a  nation — when  this  land,  this 
glorious  America,  developing  her  resources,  rising  into  that 
awful  majesty  of  power,  will  shake  the  world  and  shape  its 
destinies,  will  find  every  other  religious  garb  too  small  and  too 
miserable  to  cover  her  stately  form,  save  the  garb  of  the  Catholic 
faith,  and  the  Christian  garment  in  which  the  Church  of  God  will 
envelop  her.  And  she,  strong  in  her  material  power,  strong  in 
her  mighty  intelligence,  strong  in  that  might  that  will  place  her 
at  the  front  of  the  nations,  shall  be  the  first  to  hail  her  pontiff, 
her  father,  and  her  king,  and  to  establish  him  upon  his  mighty 
throne  as  the  emblem  and  the  centre  of  the  faith  and  the 
glorious  religion  of  a  united  people,  whose  strength — the  strength 
of  intellect,  the  strength  of  faith,  the  strength  of  material  power 
— will  raise  up,  before  the  eyes  of  a  wondering  and  united  world, 
a  new  vision  of  the  recuperative  power  and  majesty  and  great 
ness  of  the  Almighty  God,  as  reflected  in  his  Church. 


ON  THE  FIRST  BEATITUDE. 


[Delivered  at  the  Advent  Conferences  in  the  Catholic  University,  Dublin.J 
"  Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit,  for  theirs  is  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven." 

E  are  come  together  to  consider  the  things  that  regard 

our  eternal   interests — to   consider   what   we   owe  to 

God,  to  our  neighbor,  and  to  ourselves.     We  meet  to 

reflect  on  the  Divine  law,  the  reasons  and  the  extent 

of  its  obligations,  and  our  own  fulfilment  of  them. 

In  all  this  we  have  not  to  seek  for  the  truth,  but 

Blessing  of  being  .      t      refle*ct  n    ft    and   apply   ft    to    ourselves. 

Cathohca.  J  r  . ,  ,       ~,  , 

We  have  an  infallible  guide  in  truth— the  Church 
—the  pillar  and  the  ground  of  truth.  We  are  not  forced,  thank 
God,  to  fall  back  upon  our  own  judgment,  like  those  of  whom 
St.  Peter  speaks,  "  blind  and  groping."  But  to  you  I  say,  in 
the  words  of  the  same  Apostle,  "  I  will  begin  to  put  you  in  re- 
membrance of  these  things,  though  indeed  you  know  them  and 
are  confirmed  in  the  present  truth ;  but  I  think  it  meet  to  stir 
you  up  by  putting  you  in  remembrance." 

Not  so  with  others,  to  whom  an  entrance  has  not  been  min- 
istered into  "  the  everlasting  kingdom  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ."  They  are  obliged  to  inquire  into  everything,  to  at- 
tempt to  prove  everything,  even  first  principles  and  the  mys- 
teries of  revelation,  and  they  are  tempted  to  reject  even  the 
noliest  truths  of  God,  which  are  discussed  before  that  most 
fallible  tribunal— the  reason  of  man.  Of  such,  a  great  man 
formerly  intimately  connected  with  your  university,  complains, 
whilst  yet  a  Protestant,  in  the  introduction  to  one  of  his 
works.  "  Unhappy  is  it,"  he  says,  "  that  we  should  be  obliged 
to  discuss  and  defend  what  a  Christian  people  were  intended  to 


310  The  First  Beatitude. 

enjoy ;  to  appeal  to  their  intellects  instead  of  '  stirring  up  theif 
pure  mind,  by  way  of  admonition  ;'  to  direct  them  towards 
articles  of  faith  which  should  be  their  place  of  starting,  and  to 
treat  as  mere  conclusions,  what  in  other  ages  have  been  as- 
sumed as  first  principles."  "  Surely  life  is  not  long  enough  to 
prove  everything  which  may  be  made  the  subject  of  proof;  and 
though  inquiry  is  left  partly  open,  in  order  to  try  our  earnest- 
ness, yet  it  is  in  a  great  measure,  and  in  the  most  important 
points,  superseded  by  revelation,  which  discloses  things  which 
reason  could  not  reach — saves  us  the  labor  of  using  it  when  it 
might  avail,  and  sanctions  thereby  the  principle  of  dispensing 
it;"  but  he  adds,  "We  have  succeeded  in  raising  clouds 
which  effectually  hide  the  sun  from  us ;  we  have  nothing  left  but 
to  grope  our  way  by  reason  as  we  best  can — our  necessary,  be- 
cause now  our  only  guide.  .  .  .  We  have  asserted  our  right 
of  debating  every  truth,  however  sacred,  however  protected 
from  scrutiny  heretofore  ;  we  have  accounted  that  belief  alone 
to  be  manly  which  commenced  in  doubt,  that  inquiry  alone 
philosophical  which  assumed  no  first  principles,  that  religion 
alone  rational  which  we  have  created  for  ourselves ;"  and  the 
end,  my  brethren,  "  loss  of  labor,  division,  and  error  have 
been  the  threefold  gain  of  our  self-will,  as  evidently  visited  in 
this  world — not  to  follow  it  into  the  next."  Such  was  the 
testimony  of  a  singularly  deep  and  candid  mind,  even  before  it 
was  yet  enlightened  by  the  pure  rays  of  divine  truth.  But  for 
us,  we  seek  not  to  find  out  what  is  the  truth.  That  we  have 
already  found.  Our  great  Mother  holds  it,  and  propounds  it, 
and  we  say  to  her  in  the  words  of  the  Apostle,  "  I  know  whom 
I  have  believed,  and  I  am  certain  that  she  is  able  to  keep  that 
which  hath  been  committed  unto  her,"  {Scio  cui  credidi  et  cer- 
tus  sum  quia  potens  est  depositum  meum  servare.)  the  sacred 
deposit  of  all  truth.  But  we  inquire,  "that  we  may  be  able  to 
comprehend  with  all  the  saints,  what  is  the  breadth,  and  length 
and  height,  and  depth  of  that  divine  truth."  To  know  also, 
"the  charity  of  Christ,  which  surpasseth  all  knowledge,"  i.  t.,  to 
pursue  the  truth  into  all  the  details  of  its  practical  teaching  in 
the  moral  law,  where  our  faith  reveals  itself  in  charity  "  unto 
all  the  fulness  of  God."  This  is  the  great  object  of  the  Catho- 
lic preacher,  after  the  example  of  our  Divine  Lord  himself;  for 
it  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  His  first  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  in 


Th£  First  Beatitude.  311 

which  we  might  naturally  expect  an  exposition  of  Christian 
dogma,  was  a  moral  sermon,  sketching  out  the  great  features 
of  the  Christian  character,  by  which  His  followers  should  br 
individually  known  amongst  men  to  the  end  of  time.  Let  us 
consider  them : 

First — "  Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit,  for  theirs  is  the  king- 
dom of  heaven." 

The  first  word  spoken  by  our  Lord  was,  "  Blessed."  "  Much 
people  followed  Him,"  says  the  Evangelist,  "  from  Galilee,  and 
from  Decapolis,  and  from  Jerusalem,  and  from  beyond  the 
Jordan,  and  seeing  the  multitude,  He  went  up  into  a  moun- 
tain;" this  was  His  pulpit — befitting  the  preacher  and  His 
message.  He  was  "  the  desired  of  the  everlasting  hills,"  and 
it  was  written,  "  Get  Thee  up  into  a  high  mountain ;  Thou 
that  bringest  good  tidings  to  Sion ;  lift  up  Thy  voice,  Thou  that 
bringest  good  tidings  to  Jerusalem ;  lift  it  up,  fear  not ;  say  to 
the  cities  of  Juda,  behold  your  God,"  and  opening  His  mouth, 
He  taught  them.  The  mouth  of  God,  closed  for  four  thousand 
years,  and  when  last  it  spoke,  it  was  to  curse  the  first  sinner 
and  the  earth  in  his  work,  "Cursed  is  the  earth  in  thy  work;" 
"  the  earth  is  infected ;"  (Isaias)  "  for  the  Lord  hath  spoken 
this  word,  ....  therefore  shall  a  curse  devour  the  earth." 
Now,  it  was  fitting  that  Christ's  first  word  should  be  a  revoking 
of  this  curse,  for,  as  St.  Paul  loves  to  bring  out,  He  was  the 
antithesis  of  Adam.  "  As  by  the  disobedience 
utheris ofAdam."  °^  one  man>  many  were  made  sinners  ;  so  also, 
by  the  obedience  of  one  man,  many  shall  be  made 
just,  .  .  .  therefore,  as  by  the  offence  of  one,  unto  all  men 
to  condemnation  ;  so  also,  by  the  justice  of  one,  unto  all  men 
to  justification  of  life."  And  yet,  if  we  look  into  the  blessing, 
we  shall  find  that  the  curse  pronounced  upon  the  world  is 
rather  confirmed  than  revoked  by  it,  for  it  says,  "  Blessed  are 
the  poor  in  spirit,"  i.  e.,  Blessed  are  they  who  in  some  sense  or 
other  are  alienated  and  separated  from  the  world. 

Mark  that  Christ  begins  with  the  spirit.     First, 
why  Christ  be-     because  "  God  is  a  spirit,  and  they  that  adore  Him 

gins     with     the  ......  .    .     '  ,    ,,       TT 

Spirit  must  adore  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth.       Hence, 

the  Apostle  says :  "  God  is  my  witness,  whom  I 

serve  in  my  spirit."     And   secondly,  because  the  spirit  or  seat 

of  the  affections  is  that  portion  of  man's  soul  which  guides  and 


312  The  First  Beatitude. 

influences  all  the  action  of  his  life.  There  are  two  great  por- 
tions— divisions — powers — faculties  in  the  soul  of  man  :  first, 
the  apprehensive  or  intellectual ;  and  second,  the  affective  ot 
appetitive.  To  the  first  belongs  the  memory  ;  and  the  office  ot 
this  first  great  portion  of  the  soul  is  to  apprehend  and  preserve 
ideas,  and  from  them  to  form  knowledge.  The  second  great 
division  of  the  soul,  which  we  have  called  the  spirit  (for  the  very 
word  suspirare  signifies  desire),  contains  the  intellectual  appetite 
or  will,  the  affections  and  desires  ;  and  as  this  will  of  man,  which 
is  led  not  only  by  the  intellect  but  still  more  forcibly  by  the 
passions  or  desires,  according  to  the  saying  of  the  poet,  "  trahit 
sua  guemque  voluptas"  determines  his  every  act,  for  that  act 
alone  is  human  which  proceeds  from  it,  it  follows  that  the  por- 
tion of  the  soul  which  holds  this  will  and  these  affections  and 
desires  is  the  source  and  spring  of  all  moral  life  in  man.  Christ 
our  Lord,  therefore,  began  with  the  spirit,  because  He  wished  to 
change  the  face  of  the  earth.  "  Send  forth  Thy  Spirit,  and  they 
shall  be  created,  and  Thou  shalt  renew  the  face  of  the  earth." 
The  Spirit  of  God  was  to  go  forth  and  to  take  the  place  of  the 
human  spirit,  and  Christianity  was  to  effect  this,  that  men  should 
no  longer  be  led  by  their  own  spirit — i.  e.,  their  own  natural 
affections  and  desires — but  by  the  Spirit  of  God.  According  to 
the  word  of  the  Apostle,  "  Whosoever  are  led  by  the  Spirit  of 
God  they  are  the  sons  of  God,"  and  thus  they  should  "  put  on  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  for  if  any  man  have  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ, 
he  is  none  of  His."  But  to  Christians  he  says,  "  Know  you  not 
that  you  are  the  temple  of  God,  and  that  the  Spirit  of  God 
dwelleth  in  you  ?"  Blessed,  then  says  the  Saviour,  are  the  poor 
in  spirit.  Some  commentators  apply  this  word  to  those  who 
are  really  poor,  either  by  privation  in  the  world  or  by  the  high 
voluntary  poverty  of  holy  religion  which  we  find  in  the  cloister. 
That  the  text  bears  such  an  application  is  abundantly  proved 
from  St.  Luke,  who  adds  in  the  context,  "  Woe  to  you  who  are 
rich,  for  you  have  your  consolation."  Still,  the  text  bears  a 
much  more  extended  application,  and,  therefore,  others  inter- 
pret poverty  of  spirit  to  mean  humility,  the  foundation,  and,  at 
the  same  time,  the  crown  of  all  virtues.  This  interpretation  is 
also  true,  and  the  most  adopted  by  the  holy  fathers.  But  we  can 
find  even  more  in  this  beatitude  than  the  canonization  of  hu- 
mility.    As  it  was  the  first  feature  of  the  Christian   character 


The  First  Beatitude.  313 

propounded  by  the  Saviour,  so,  upon  reflection,  we  find  in  this 
beatitude  the  first  foundation  of  Christian  life — namely,  Faith  • 
for  truly  the  man  who  is  poor  in  spirit  means  the  man  of  faith. 
What  is  poverty?  Poverty  means  privation — an  emptiness — an 
absence  of  something — a  casting  away  from  us  and  a  renuncia 
tion  of  something.  Poverty  of  spirit,  then,  would  mean  a  cast- 
ing away  of  desires — affections — appetites — seeing  that  the  spirit 
of  man  is  the  seat  of  all  these.  But  does  Almighty  God  demand 
of  us  a  relinquishing  of  all  affections  and  desires  ?  In  other 
words,  does  He  demand  of  us  a  destruction  of  this  great  portion 
of  our  being?  Certainly  not.  God  is  not  a  destroyer,  nor  is 
destruction  pleasing  to  Him.  It  is  not,  then,  so  much  the  de- 
struction as  the  transfer  of  our  desires,  hopes,  affections,  which 
Almighty  God  demands  of  us  by  poverty  of  spirit.  There  are 
two  kinds  of  possessions — the  temporal  and  the  eternal — the  visi- 
ble and  the  invisible — the  things  of  the  present  and  those  of  the 
future — the  goods  of  sense  and  those  of  faith.  Now,  man  is 
naturally  inclined  to  seek  the  things  of  this  world  rather  than 
those  of  the  world  to  come.  He  depends  so  much  upon  his 
senses,  even  for  the  things  which  belong  to  the  soul,  such  as 
knowledge  and  even  faith  ;  he  is  so  completely  surrounded  by 
sense  that  he  is  naturally  inclined  to  rest  in  sense,  to  seek  his 
happiness  in  the  present  enjoyment  of  sense,  and  to  put  away 
from  him  all  consideration  of  future  and  unseen  things.  Much 
more  are  we  unwilling  to  make  any  sacrifice  for  the  sake  of  the 
unseen — to  relinquish  the  visible  for  the  invisible — to  deprive 
ourselves  of  present  enjoyment  because  of  blessings  to  come. 
We  all  love  ourselves  faithfully — intensely.  We  love  ourselves 
better  than  anything  else — better  than  our  neighbor — than  vir- 
tue— than  God. 

Now,  Christ  our  Lord,  by  redemption,  made  us  the  sons  of 
God  ;  "  and  he  gave  them  power  to  become  sons  of  God."  As 
such  we  must  be  different  from  the  old,  the  natural  man,  in 
spirit — i.  e.,  in  thoughts,  in  desires,  in  affections,  in  views,  in  con- 
duct. This  the  Apostle  clearly  points  out  when  he  says,  "the 
first  man  was  of  the  earth — earthly;  the  second  man  from  hea- 
ven— heavenly.  Such  as  is  the  earthly  such  also  are  the  earthly, 
and  such  as  is  the  heavenly  such  also  are  they  that  are  heavenly. 
Therefore,  as  we  have  borne  the  image  of  the  earthly,  let  us  bear 
also  the  image  of  the  heavenly."     But  before  we  can  thus  put 


314  The  First  Beatitude. 

on  the  image  of  the  heavenly  man,  so  as  to  be  made  conform 
able  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ-  -in  a  word,  before  we  become 
Christians,  we  must  cast  away  from  us  the  old  man,  the  human 
spirit,  and  hence  poverty  of  spirit  is  the  beginning,  the  founda- 
tion, of  the  Christian  character.  Faith  is  "  the  substance  of 
things  to  be  hoped  for,"  consequently,  future  blessings ;  "  the 
conviction  of  things  that  appear  not,"  consequently,  things  not 
to  be  apprehended  by  the  senses ;  for,  says  the  Apostle,  "  Per 
fidcm  ambulamiis,  et  non  per  speciem."  The  man  of  faith  is  he 
who  has  views  and  desires  beyond  and  above  this  world  and 
sense,  who  makes  not  the  things  of  sense  the  last  and  great 
object  of  his  wishes  and  desires  ;  who  uses  not  at  all  the  things 
that  are,  when  they  cross  or  impede  his  eternal  interest  (in  other 
words,  when  they  are  sinful)*,  and  in  the  things  which  he  uses 
has  something  in  view  beyond  what  is  seen,  and  makes  all  that 
is  created  subservient  to  the  uncreated,  all  that  is  temporal  con- 
ducive to  that  which  is  eternal,  all  that  is  of  earth  serviceable  for 
that  which  is  heavenly.  Such  is  the  man  of  faith.  Oh,  glorious 
man,  like  to  the  Son  of  God  ! 


ON  THE  SECOND  BEATITUDE 


[Delivered  at  the  Advent  Conference  in  the  Catholic  University,  Dublin.] 
"  Blessed  are  the  meek  of  heart,  for  they  shall  possess  the  land." 

HIS  is  the  next  feature  of  the  Christian  character 
brought  out  by  our  divine *Lord.  The  Christian  must 
be  not  only  a  man  of  faith — living  for  divine  purposes 
— influenced  by  supernatural  motives — grasping  at  the 
invisible  beneath  the  forms  of  things  that  appear ;  but  he  must 
also  be  imbued  with  the  virtue  of  meekness.  Remember,  gen- 
tlemen, that  Christianity  means  perfection — the  very  perfection 
of  man — of  human  nature  in  all  its  natural  properties  and  pow- 
ers— and,  far  beyond  this — the  perfection  of  human  nature  in  all 
the  supernatural  gifts  of  divine  grace.  Life,  according  to  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas,  is  spontaneous  motion.  There  are  two  kinds 
of  motion — one  produced  by  something  external  or  extrinsic 
to  the  thing  moved — as  when  the  powerful  attraction  of  the 
sun  moves*  the  inanimate  earth.  The  other  is  caused  by  some- 
thing internal  or  intrinsic,  as  when  the  human  body  is  moved 
by  the  living  soul  or  principle  of  motion  within  it.  This  St. 
Thomas  calls  intrinsic  or  spontaneous  motion.  If  you  reflect  on 
the  definition  you  will  find  it  comprehensive  and  pertinent,  for 
surely  our  idea  of  life  is  motion  of  some  kind,  and  we  naturally 
look  upon  perfect  stillness  as  death.  Now,  all  motion  bears  in 
its  very  essence  the  idea  of  a  starting-point,  of  a  point  to  be 
reached,  and  of  an  effort  to  pass  from  one  to  the  other.  Now, 
the  Catholic  Church  teaches  us  that  God  is  the  starting-point  of 
man — that  God  is  the  point  to  be  attained  by  him,  and  that  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ — God  made  man — is  the  way,  the  form,  the 
model,  the  means,  to  conduct  him  to  his  end.  "  I  am  Alpha  and 
Omega — the  beginning  and  the  end;"  He  says,  and  elsewhere, 
"  I  am  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life ;"  for,  says  the  Apostle, 


316  The  Second  Beatitude. 

"there  is  but  one  God,  and  one  Mediator  between  God  and 
man,  the  man  Jesus  Christ."  The  life  thus  proposed  to  us  clear- 
'.y  involves  all  supernatural  perfection  of  grace,  for  in  "  Christ 
abode  all  the  fullness  of  the  divinity  corporally."  But,  by  an 
eternal  law,  that  which  is  perfect  in  the  highest  order  involves 
all  the  perfection  of  the  lower  ;  therefore,  in  seeking  to  be  made 
conformable  to  the  image  of  the  Son  of  God,  we  come  by  all 
that  is  most  perfect  in  the  order  of  nature,  and  thus  "  godliness 
is  profitable  to  all  things,  having  promise  of  the  life  that  now  is, 
and  of  that  which  is  to  come."  Let  us  see  how  far  the  virtue 
of  meekness  conduces  to  the  natural  and  supernatural  perfection 
of  man.     First,  then,  what  is  meekness? 

Meekness  is  the  virtue  or  power  by  which  the 
what  is  Meek-  passjon  0f  anger  js  so  moderated  and  restrained  as 
not  to  rise  within  us  except  when  necessary  and 
in  the  measure  which  is  necessary.  It  is  then,  as  you  perceive, 
ar  exercise  of  power  in  the  reason  of  man  over  the  inferior  ap- 
petites and  powers  of  the  soul.  Man,  as  you  know,  is  made  up 
of  body  and  soul — of  matter  and  spirit — each  with  its  own 
nature  and  its  own  powers — wonderfully  united,  and  acting  on 
each  other  in  the  one  being.  The  soul  has  its  own  affections 
and  desires,  its  own  rational  appetite,  which  is  the  will,  guided 
and  influenced  by  reason.  But  as  this  soul  is  joined  to  a  ma- 
terial body,  and  depends  for  its  impressions  upon  sense,  there  is 
also  a  sensual  appetite ;  and  depraved  desire  and  passion  in  ex- 
cess assail  the  soul.  These  sensitive  appetites  manjfest  them- 
selves in  two  great  master-passions  in  man,  viz.,  concupiscence 
and  anger ;  concupiscence,  which  prompts  us  to  seek  that  which  is 
or  which  we  conceive  to  be  desirable — anger,  which  disturbs  and 
excites  the  soul,  when  that  which  is  desirable  is  removed,  or 
when  we  are  impeded  in  its  pursuit.  Here  then  is  man — as  far 
as  we  have  to  deal  with  him — made  up  of  intellect,  will,  pas- 
sion of  concupiscence  and  anger ;  and,  besides  the  theological 
virtues,  which  entirely  regard  the  supernatural  perfection  of 
man,  we  have  the  cardinal  virtues,  which  may  be  said  to  regard 
his  natural  perfection,  and  they  affect  these  four  powers  or  pas- 
sions ;  for  prudence  is  in  the  intellect,  justice  in  the  will,  tem- 
perance regards  the  passion  of  concupiscence,  and  fortitude  that 
of  anger.  The  more  these  virtues  govern  and  influence  their 
respective  powers,  the  more  perfect  is  man,  in  the  order  of  na- 


The  Second  Beatitude.  317 

ture.  "  It  belongs  to  human  virtue,"  says  St.  Thomas,  "  to  make 
a  man  perfect  by  reducing  his  every  act  to  the  dominion  of  rea- 
son, which  is  done  in  three  ways.  1st,  The  reason  itself  is 
rightly  ordered,  and  this  is  done  by  the  intellectual  virtues  or 
powers.  2d,  Reason  thus  ordered  or  perfected  becorrfes  the 
guide  and  ruler  of  all  human  affairs,  through  the  medium  of  the 
virtue  of  justice  ;  and,  3d,  All  impediments  to  such  guidance  or 
government  of  reason  are  removed,  1st,  by  the  virtue  of  tem- 
perance, which  restrains  the  will  when  it  is  drawn  aside  in  pur- 
suit of  that  which  right  reason  forbids,  and,  2d,  by  fortitude, 
which  overcomes,  by  strength  of  mind  and  will,  the  difficulties 
that  arise  in  the  way  of  virtue,  just  as  a  man  by  strength  and  en 
ergy  of  body  conquers  and  repels  all  bodily  difficulties."  Thus 
we  behold  how  all  natural  perfection  in  man  consists  in  the  per- 
fect and  absolute  dominion  of  a  well-ordered  reason  or  mind. 
Perfection  means  order,  for,  observes  the  Angelic  Master,  the  per- 
fection and  beauty  of  all  creation  consists  in  order.  Now,  our 
idea  of  order  is  that  inferior  things  should  be  subject  to  things 
superior,  and  that  what  is  supreme  should  govern  all ;  but  as 
the  intellect  or  reason  is  the  supreme  power  in  man,  it  follows 
that  man's  natural  perfection  must  consist  in  the  dominion  of 
this  reason  over  all  the  inferior  powers  of  the  soul  and  all  the 
passions  and  inclinations  of  the  man. 

Thus  it  was  with  the  first  man  as  he  came  from  the  hands  of 
God — a  perfect  being.  "  God  made  man  right,"  says  the 
Preacher ;  and  elsewhere, "  He  filled  him  with  the  knowledge  of 
understanding,  and  He  created  in  him  the  science  of  the  spirit, 
and  filled  his  heart  with  wisdom."  In  that  happy  time,  before 
sin  found  its  entrance  into  the  newly-created  world,  all  was  per- 
fection, because  all  was  order.  The  inferior  animals  and  beings 
were  perfectly  subject  to  man.  "  Let  us  make  man,"  says  the 
Lord,  "  to  our  image  and  likeness,  and  let  him  have  dominion 
over  the  fishes  of  the  sea,  and  the  fowls  of  the  air,  and  the  beasts, 
and  the  whole  earth,  and  every  creeping  creature  that  moveth 
upon  the  earth."  The  senses,  and  all  the  inferior  appetites  in 
man  himself,  were  under  complete  control  of  the  will,  which,  in 
its  turn  was  ruled  by  a  reason  that  was  in  perfect  subjection  to 
God.  But  when  this  order  was  disturbed  by  sin — when  man's 
reason  and  will  refused  their  obedience  to  God — then  the  in- 
ferior appetites  and  passions,  in  their  turn,  refused  to  be  subject 


318  The  Second  Beatitude. 

to  the  reason,  and  the  creation  of  God,  and  the  stubborn  earth 
itself,  rebelled  against  man.  In  losing  the  supernatural  gifts  of 
grace  and  innocence,  man  lost  also  the  very  natural  integrit> 
and  perfection  of  his  being.  Such  was  the  connection  between 
nature* and  grace,  that  when  grace  departed  the  integrity  of 
nature  was  also  lost,  and  humanity  remained  not  only  robbed 
and  stripped  of  its  divine  clothing,  but  also  mutilated  and 
powerless.  From  all  this  it  follows,  first,  that  the  passion  which 
most  directly  and  powerfully  assails  the  dominion  of  reason — 
blinds  it,  overpowers  it,  casts  it  from  its  throne — is  the  greatest 
impediment  to  man's  natural  perfection.  And,  secondly,  that 
the  virtue  or  power  which  masters  this  passion — binds  it  down 
under  the  dominion  of  the  mind,  directs  its  energy,  whilst  it 
destroys  its  inordinate  tendency — is  the  greatest  safeguard  of 
reason,  and  consequently  most  directly  conducive  to  man's 
natural  perfection.  Now,  gentlemen,  that  passion  is  anger,  and 
that  virtue  is  meekness.  Well  then  may  we  conclude  that  Christ 
our  Lord,  in  restoring  1 5  us  the  supernatural,  and  enabling  us  to 
acquire  this  virtue,  has  also  given  us  back  the  integrity  and  natural 
perfection  which  Adam  had  lost.     What  is  anger  ?     Anger  is  de 

fined  :  An  inordinate  desire  of  revenge.  The  sen- 
whatis  Anger?      sitive  appetite,  excited,  inflamed  by  injury,  real  or 

imaginary,  acts  upon  the  will,  inclining  and  inducing 
it  to  desire  of  revenge.  It  is  no  longer  reason  guiding  and  direct- 
ing the  will,  but  the  sensitive  appetite,  i.  e.,  an  inferior  power  of  the 
soul,  directing  a  superior — consequently,  an  inversion  of  order. 
The  very  nature  of  anger  is  to  act  and  desire  without  right 
reflection.  Hence,  nothing  is  more  common  than  to  plead  anger 
as  an  excuse  for  irrational  acts.  We  say,  a  man  did  such  a 
thing  under  the  great  excitement  of  anger,  consequently  he  can- 
not be  held  accountable — we  must  excuse  him.  Yes — excuse 
him ;  but  the  very  plea  put  forward  in  his  defence  shows  how 
completely  reason  is  destroyed,  for  the  time  being,  by  this 
passion,  for,  as  the  poet  says,  "  ir a  furor  brevis  est" — it  is  a  tem- 
porary madness.  We  sometimes  hear  the  phrase,  "  maddened 
by  anger;"  and  the  very  law  speaks  of  the  murder  committed  in 
anger,  as  manslaughter — one  animal  slaughtering  another.  We 
never  speak  of  a  man  as  maddened  by  pride,  maddened  by  lust 
— but  maddened  by  anger.  A  man  in  anger  is  recognized  as  an 
unreasoning  animal.     He  no  longer  answers  to  the  definition  of 


The  Second  Beatitude.  319 

man,  "  animal  rationale"  In  fact,  if  right  reason  were  supposed 
to  rule  him,  we  should  cease  to  look  upon  him  as  angry,  for  it 
is  not  the  excitement,  but  the  inordinate,  unreasoning  excess 
of  it,  amounting  to  perturbation  of  mind  and  subversion  of 
reason,  which  constitutes  the  sin  of  anger.  There  is  an  excite- 
ment which  has  all  the  appearance  of  anger,  and  which  even 
leads  to  terrible  results,  and  yet  is  sinless,  because  under  the 
control  of  a  well-ordered  mind.  St.  Chrysostom  says :  "  He 
that  is  angry  without  cause,  sins ;  but  he  who  has  sufficient 
cause,  sins  not.  Nam  si  ira  non  fuerit  nee  doctrina  proficit  nee 
jud-lcia  stant — nee  crimina  compescuntur" 

Such  was  the  indignation  of  Moses,  "the  meekest  of  men." 
He  saw  an  Egyptian  strike  one  of  the  Hebrews,  his  brethren 
.  .  .  he  slew  the  Egyptian  and  hid  him  in  the  sand.  And 
again,  "  When  he  came  nigh  to  the  camp  he  saw  the  calf  and 
the  dances,  and,  being  very  angry,  he  threw  the  tables  out  of  his 
hand  and  broke  them  at  the  foot  of  the  mount  .  .  .  and 
standing  in  the  gate  of  the  camp  he  said  :  If  any  man  be  on  the 
Lord's  side  let  him  join  with  me ;  and  all  the  sons  of  Levi  gath- 
ered themselves  together  unto  him,  and  he  said  to  them,  Thus 
saith  the  Lord,  the  God  of  Israel ;  put  every  man  his  sword  upon 
his  thigh  ;  go  and  return  from  gate  to  gate  through  the  midst 
of  the  camp,  and  let  every  man  kill  his  brother  and  friend  and 
neighbor.  And  the  sons  of  Levi  did  according  to  the  words  of 
Moses,  and  there  were  slain  that  day  about  three  and  twenty 
thousand  men."  And  yet  what  says  the  Holy  Ghost  ?  "  Moses 
was  a  man  exceeding  meek  above  all  men  that  dwelt  upon  earth." 
Such  again  was  the  noble  indignation  of  Mathathias  .  .  . 
"  a  priest  of  the  sons  of  Joarib  ;  "  for  when  "there  came  a  cer- 
tain Jew  in  the  sight  of  all  to  sacrifice  to  the  idols  upon  the 
altar  in  the  city  of  Modin,  according  to  the  king's  commandment. 
And  Mathathias  saw  and  was  grieved,  and  his  veins  trembled, 
*and  his  wrath  was  kindled  according  to  the  jtidgment  of  the  law, 
and  running  upon  him  he  slew  him  upon  the  altar."  We  can 
go  far  higher  for  an  illustration  of  the  word  of  the  Psalmist, 
"  Be  ye  angry  and  sin  not."  "  And  Jesus  went  up  to  Jerusalem  ; 
and  He  found  in  the  temple  them  that  sold  oxen  and  sheep  and 
doves,  and  the  changers  of  money  sitting.  And  when  He  had 
made  as  it  were  a  scourge  of  little  cords,  He  drove  them  all  out 
of  the  temple    .         .    and  the  money  of  the  changers  He  poured 


320  The  Second  Beatitude, 

out,  and  the  tables  He  overthrew."  But  in  all  these  and  the 
like  examples,  a  high  and  perfect  motive  of  reason  governed 
and  directed  the  acts ;  as  in  Moses,  the  inspiration  of  God ;  in 
Mathathias,  the  "  judgment  of  the  law ;"  and  in  our  blessed  Lord, 
a  devouring  zeal  for  the  glory  and  honor  of  His  Father's  house. 
There  is  then,  as  you  perceive,  a  good  and  a  bad  anger ;  an 
anger  justifiable  and  unjustifiable.  Hence  Aristotle  says,  "  He 
is  worthy  of  praise  or  of  blame,  who  is  sometimes  angry." 
When  is  anger  sinful,  when  is  it  not?  It  is  sinful,  first,  when  we 
desire  vindication  or  revenge  for  its  own  sake,  and  not  for  the 
lawful  end  of  correction  of  our  neighbor ;  or  when  we  wish  to 
see  the  innocent  punished  or  to  have  excessive  punishment  in- 
flicted on  the  guilty ;  or  when  we  wish  to  subvert  the  legitimate 
order  and  course  of  justice ;  in  a  word,  when  the  desire  is  contrary 
to  right  reason.  Secondly,  anger  is  sinful  when  the  motion  or 
excitement  is  allowed  to  become  too  vehement,  so  as  to  be  rage, 
either  internal  or  external,  for  thus  it  takes  the  place  of  reason ; 
and  St.  Gregory  the  Great  says,  "  All  care  must  be  taken  lest 
anger,  which  should  be  the  handmaid  of  virtue,  be  allowed  to 
predominate  in  the  mind  ;  lest  she  should  become  mistress,  who, 
like  an  obedient  servant,  should  stand  behind  reason."  But  no 
passion  more  completely  destroys  reason,  as  we  have  seen,  than 
inordinate  and  sinful  anger;  nay,  more,  it  deforms  even  the  ex- 
terior man,  making  him  like  to  a  demon  ;  hence  St.  John  Chry- 
sostom  says,  "  Nothing  is  more  frightful  than  the  face  of  an  in- 
furiated man  ;"  for,  says  St.  Gregory,  quoting  indeed  from  Seneca, 
"  The  excited  heart  throbs — the  body  trembles — the  senseless 
tongue  pours  forth  incoherent  words — the  inflamed  countenance 
fires  with  rage — the  furious  eyes  sparkle  again !  "  and,  concludes 
the  mild  philosopher,  "  What  must  the  angry  soul  be  whose 
external  image  is  so  foul  and  deformed ! " 

If  such  be  anger,  how  high  and  glorious  must 
nes"69  °  mee  *hzt  virtue  be  which  conquers,  moderates,  and 
restrains  it — which  either  represses  it  altogether, 
so  as  to  preserve  perfect  peace  of  soul  and  body,  or  permits  it 
to  rise  only  as  far  as  reason  permits  or  demands,  and  thus  makes 
a  virtue  of  what  may  be  so  hideous  a  vice — and  such  is  meek- 
ness. Many  persons,  particularly  the  young,  look  upon  meek- 
ness as  something  unnecessary  and  superfluous — a  virtue  of  the 
cloister,  or  of  females,  and  of  the  old.     And  thus  blinded  and 


The  Second  Beatitude.  321 

misled,  they  allow  an  evil,  impetuous  temper  anJ  passion  to 
enslave  them.  And  yet,  surely,  there  is  no  virtue  more  manly 
or  ennobling  than  that  which  enables  a  man  to  govern  himself 
and  his  own  passions.  How  can  a  man  rule  others  who  is  un- 
able to  rule  himself?  how  can  a  man  associate  with  others  who 
is  powerless  and  unable  to  live  with  his  own  soul  in  peace  ?  He 
truly  is  fitted  to  be  an  Anax  AndrOn — a  king  of  men — who  has 
learned  by  meekness  to  keep  the  little  kingdom  of  his  own  soul 
and  body  in  the  proper  order  of  subjection  to  reason.  Every 
virtue  is  a  power — the  very  word  virtue  means  power  ;  and  what 
is  more  terrible  in  its  power  than  meekness  ?  We  admire  the 
strength  of  Samson,  quietly  turning  aside  into  the  vineyard  and 
tearing  the  lion  as  he  would  have  torn  a  kid  in  pieces :  far  more 
wonderful  is  the  strength  of  him  who  can  seize  the  demon  of 
anger,  and  chain  him  down  as  the  archangel  chained  Lucifer. 
St.  Thomas  asks  the  question  whether  meekness  be  the  greatest 
of  moral  virtues  ?  After  some  distinctions  he  answers  :  "  In  one 
sense,  meekness  has  a  peculiar  excellence  amongst  the  virtues  ; 
for  as  anger,  on  account  of  its  impetuosity  and  suddenness, 
deprives  the  soul  (more  than  any  other  passion)  of  freedom  and 
of  the  power  of  judgment,  so  meekness,  which  governs  anger, 
preserves  unto  man  (beyond  all  other  virtues)  the  possession  of 
himself;"  hence  Ecclesiasticus  saith,  "  My  son,  keep  thy  soul  in 
meekness  and  give  it  honor  according  to  its  deserts.  Who  will 
justify  him  that  sinneth  against  his  own  soul  ?  Who  will  honor 
him  that  dishonoreth  his  own  soul?"  How  powerless  is  the 
angry  man  when  he  is  confronted  by  one  who  holds  his  soul  and 
his  temper  in  meekness !  How  futile  was  the  rage  of  the  Phar- 
isees and  priests  in  presence  of  the  meekness  of  Jesus  Christ ! 
We  have  seen  how  far  this  virtue  contributes  to  our  natural 
perfection ;  let  us  now  consider  its  supernatural  excellence. 
The  perfection  of  man  in  the  supernatural  order  of  grace  is  to 
be  made  like  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  by  grace  here — by  glory 
hereafter.  "  Those  whom  He  foreknew  and  predestinated  to 
be  made  conformable  to  the  image  of  His  Son,  the  same  also 
He  called,  and  whom  He  called  the  same  also  He  justified,  ani 
whom  He  justified  the  same  also  He  glorified."  The  resem- 
blance of  grace  here  reveals  itself  in  virtues,  and  foremost  of 
these  is  meekness,  because  our  divine  Lord  Himself  puts  it  first, 
saving,  Learn  of  Me,  because  I  am  meek  and  humble  of  heart." 

21 


THE  CHURCH. 


[Sermon  delivered  in  the  Church  of  Santa  Maria  del  Popolo,  Rome,  on  the  Seconi 
Sunday  of  Advent,  1865.] 

Text— The  Epistle  of  the  day,  Romans  xv.  4-13. 

AITH,  as  we  have  seen,  is  an  absolute,  firm,  immuta- 
ble belief  in  all  that  God  has  revealed,  of  which  the 
sole  motive  is  the  truthfulness  of  God.  Being  such, 
it  must,  of  necessity,  as  we  have  seen,  be  simple,  firm, 
universal,  and  courageous  ;  and  in  this  day's  sermon  I  engaged 
to  prove  that  the  Holy  Roman  Catholic  Church  was  the  only 
true  messenger  of  God,  in  that  in  her  only  do  we  find  these 
four  essential  qualities  of  true  faith. 

But  it  may  be  asked,  Where  is  the  necessity  of  a  Church  at 
all  ?  Have  we  not  the  Scriptures,  in  which  God  has  given  us 
all  that  he"  has  revealed  ?  What  do  you  mean  by  a  Church  ? 
What  are  the  duties  and  functions  of  a  Church?  What  grounds 
have  you  for  calling  on  us  to  admit  the  existence  and  authority 
of  such  an  institution  ?  All  these  questions  must  be  answered 
before  you  say  a  single  word  on  the  peculiar  claims  or  argu- 
ments of  the  Church  Catholic. 

First.  What  is  the  definition  of  a  Church?  A  Church  is  a 
living  body  or  congregation,  united  together  by  a  common  be- 
lief in  the  same  doctrines,  by  having  the  same  rites  and  usages> 
and  by  admitting  the  same  government  and  authority.  These 
three  are  necessary  in  the  very  idea  of  a  Church.  A  common 
belief,  else  there  can  be  no  real  and  interior  union.  The  same 
rites  and  usages,  else  there  can  be  no  exterior  union  ;  and  one 
government  and  authority,  without  which  no  society,  human  or 
divine,  can  possibly  exist.  The  definition  of  the  Catholic 
Church  is,  u  The  congregation  of  all  the  faithful — believing  the 


The  Church.  323 

same  trutl.s — having  the  same  sacraments  and  sacrifices,  and 
under  one  and  the  same  visible  head." 

Second.  What  are  the  duties  and  functions  of  a  Church? 
They  are,  my  brethrei  ,  principally  to  preserve  unity  of  doctrine, 
that  all  "  be  of  one  mind  ;"  holiness  and  purity  of  doctrine,  "  that 
with  one  mind  and  one  mouth  all  may  glorify  God ;"  catholicity 
of  doctrine,  which  means  universality — by  teaching  "  all  truth," 
and  to  all  peoples,  to  Jew  and  Gentile,  in  every  clime,  from  the 
rising  of  the  sun  unto  the  going  down  thereof,  making  known 
the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  apostolicity  of  doctrine,  i.  e., 
doctrine  handed  down  from  the  Apostles  in  an  unbroken  chain, 
and  guaranteed  by  their  power  and  jurisdiction,  equally  and 
connectedly  transmitted  to  their  successors.  The  duties  and 
functions  of  a  Christian  Church,  if  there  be  such  an  institution, 
are  naturally  and  necessarily  to  teach  men  what  to  believe  and 
what  to  do ;  what  to  practise  and  what  to  avoid ;  to  prepare 
them  for  heaven  and  for  God  ;  to  make  them  in  mind  and  in 
action,  Christians — friends  of  God,  and  worthy  to  be  admitted 
into  His  kingdom. 

Third.  But  it  may  be  said,  Where  is  the  necessity  of  this 
Church,  or  living  teaching  authority,  as  you  call  it  ?  Have  we 
not  the  written  law  and  word  of  God,  preserving  His  revealed 
word,  and  pointing  out  the  path  of  holiness  and  salvation ;  in  a 
word,  doing  the  very  things  that  you  say  fall  within  the  duties 
and  functions  of  the  Church  ?  To  this  I  answer,  True,  we 
have  the  written  word  of  God.  But  no  society  is  or  ever  has 
been  founded  on  a  written  code,  without  a  living  authoritative 
voice  to  explain  and  enforce  it.  The  written  word  does  not 
explain  itself.  If  left  to  itself,  it  is  interpreted  according  to  the 
different  judgments,  whims,  caprices  of  its  readers  ;  and  being 
thus  varied  and  changed,  it  practically  ceases  to  be  the  voice  of 
God,  which  is  unchangeable — the  way  of  salvation,  which  is  one 
and  not  many — the  rule  of  faith,  which  must  be  firm  and  authori- 
tative. God  has,  therefore,  placed  this  written  revealed  word 
in  the  hands  of  the  Church,  lest  "  the  unlearned  and  unstable 
wrest  it  to  their  own  destruction."  Again,  although  all  that  is 
in  the  Scriptures  is  revealed  truth,  still  it  is  not  the  whole 
truth.  It  pleased  Almighty  God  to  reveal  many  truths  to  the 
Church,  which  are  not  found  expressly  stated  in  the  Scriptures. 
Hence,  although  the  written  word  is  the  principal  portion  of 


324  -fik  Church. 

the  Christian's  rule  of  faith,  it  is  not  all  the  rule.  The  true  and 
entire  rule  of  faith,  is  the  word  of  God  revealed — written  and 
unwritten  ;  for  we  are  told  by  the  Apostle  (2  Thess.  ii.  14)  that 
a  we  must  stand  fast,  and  hold  the  traditions  which  we  have 
learned,  whether  by  word  or  by  epistle,"  i.  e.,  writing.  All  that 
is  written  in  Scripture  is  good  and  true,  "  profitable  to  teach, 
to  reprove,  to  correct,  to  instruct  in  justice  ;"  but  nowhere  in 
the  Scriptures  do  we  find  a  single  word  to  justify  us  in  assert- 
ing that  the  Bible  alone  is  the  rule  of  faith.  The  existence  of 
the  Christian  Church,  therefore,  is  a  necessity.  First,  to  preserve 
and  interpret  the  written  word,  to  teach  men  its  true  meaning, 
which  is  one,  holy,  unchangeable  as  the  mind  of  God,  which  it 
expresses.  Second,  the  Church  is  a  necessity,  to  preserve  and 
teach  us  the  revelation  which  we  have  received,  not  by  writing 
but  by  word  ;  to  guard  in  all  their  purity  those  sacred  traditions 
and  truths  which  she  received  from  her  Lord  and  His  Apostles, 
"  which,  if  they  were  written,  every  one  (says  St.  John),  the 
world,  itself,  I  think,  would  not  be  able  to  contain  the  books 
that  should  be  written."  For,  as  we  are  told  in  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles,  our  Lord  continued  "  for  forty  days  appearing  to 
them  and  speaking  of  the  K'ngdom  of  God,"  whereby  is  meant 
the  Holy  Church. 

But  if  we  had  no  other  proof  of  the  necessity  of  an  authori- 
tative voice  to  explain  the  sacred  text  of  Scripture,  would  not 
our  own  experience  show  us  this  necessity?  Behold  the  num- 
berless opinions,  and  religious  sects,  and  absurd  systems  of  be- 
lief and  practice  which  have  sprung  up  wherever  the  voice  of 
the  Church  is  not  heard  and  received.  So  great  is  their  num- 
ber, so  bitter  their  mutual  hatred,  so  absurd  their  pretensions 
and  practices,  so  miserably  vain  and  narrow-minded  their  spirit, 
that  they  would  bring  Christianity  into  contempt,  if  they  were 
not  confronted  by  the  True  Church,  the  Mighty  Catholic  Mother 
of  the  faithful,  who  upholds  the  divine  word  in  all  its  un- 
changing majesty  of  truth,  and  in  all  its  beauty  of  holiness. 

Having  thus  seen  what  a  Church  means,  what  are  its  duties 
and  functions,  and  what  its  necessity,  we  come  to  the  grand  ques- 
tion, Is  the  existence  of  such  a  Church — One — Holy — Catholic 
— Apostolical — contemplated  in  Scripture,  and  where  is  she  to  be 
found  ?  I  answer,  that  such  a  Church  is  clearly  recognized  in 
Scripture,  and  that  she  is  to  be  found  only  in  that  congregation 


The  Church. 


325 


which  has  never  changed  her  faith  nor  failed  in  doctrine ;  which 
teaches  all  righteousness,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  least  sin  ; 
which  is  to  be  found  everywhere,  and  which  can  trace  her  power 
and  jurisdiction  to  the  Apostles ;  that  is,  the  Holy  Roman 
Catholic  Church. 

The  unity  of  the  Church  is  recognized  in  Scripture,  for,  says 
the  Apostle,  we  have  "  one  Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism,  one 
God  and  Father  of  all ;"  wherefore  he  commands  them  to  pre- 
serve the  unity  of  the  spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace.  Here,  St. 
Paul  compares  the  oneness  of  faith  to  that  of  God,  and  as  God 
is  necessarily  and  essentially  one,  so  faith  is  also  one.  And  in 
the  wonderfully  beautiful  and  touching  prayer  of  Jesus  Christ 
for  His  Church,  the  first  grace  He  asked  of  His  Father  was  this 
unity.  "  These  things  Jesus  spoke,  and  lifting  up  His  eyes  to 
heaven  He  said,  ....  Holy  Father,  keep  them  in  My 
name  whom  Thou  hast  given  Me,  that  they  may  be  one,  as 
we  also  are.  ...  1  have  given  them  Thy  word  .  .  . 
I  have  manifested  Thy  name  to  the  men  whom  Thou  hast 
given  Me  ....  and  they  have  kept  Thy  word.  .  .  . 
Sanctify  them  in  truth.  Thy  word  is  truth.  As  Thou 
hast  sent  Me  into  the  world,  I  also  send  them  into  the  world. 
And  for  them  do  I  sanctify  Myself,  that  they  also  may  be  sanc- 
tified in  truth.  And  not  for  them  only  do  I  pray,  but  for  them 
also  who  through  their  word  shall  believe  in  Me.  That  they  all 
may  be  one,  as  Thou,  Father,  in  Me,  and  I  in  Thee,  that  they 
also  may  be  one  in  us ;  that  the  world  may  believe  that  Thou 
hast  sent  Me.  And  the  glory  which  Thou  hast  given  Me,  I 
have  given  to  them,  that  they  may  be  one,  as  we  also  are  one." 
(John  xvii.)  Now,  it  cannot  be  argued  that  Christ  here  prayed 
only  for  the  union  of  charity  amongst  all  who  profess  Christian- 
ity, for  He  speaks  of  being  one  in  truth — i.  e.,  in  faith.  Else- 
where, the  Apostle  speaks  of  those  who  profess  Christianity,  and 
yet  are  to  be  shunned.  "  Now,  I  beseech  you,  brethren,  tc 
mark  those  who  make  dissensions  and  offences,  contrary  to  the 
doctrines  which  you  have  learnt,  and  to  avoid  them,"  "  for  your 
obedience  is  published  in  every  place.  I  rejoice,  therefore,  in 
\ou."  Now,  if  we  are  told  to  avoid  a  man,  how  can  we  be  said 
to  be  one  with  him  ?  Nay,  more,  the  Apostle,  in  the  same 
place,  calls  those  heretics  who,  "  by  pleasing  speeches  and  good 
words,  seduce  the  hearts  of  the  innocent"  from  the  one  doctrine, 


326  The  Church. 

Satan  ,  for  he  says,  "  May  the  God  of  Peace  crush  Satan  under 
your  feet  speedily."  But  are  we  to  be  one  with  Satan  ?  Cer- 
tainly not.  Therefore,  I  conclude  that,  although  we  are  to  hate 
no  one — nay,  we  are  bound  to  love  all  men  as  our  neighbor, 
even  though  they  differ  from  us  in  faith — still,  the  charity 
which  is  to  make  us  one  with  them  in  God  must  be  founded  in 
the  truth — i.  e.,  in  the  unity  of  the  one  true  faith.  Thus  do  we 
clearly  see  that  the  Church  recognized  in  Scripture  has  the  mark  of 
unity  set  upon  her,  whereby  men  may  know  that  she  is  from  God. 
The  next  great  feature  of  the  Christian  Church,  recognized  in 
Scripture,  is  holiness.  Holiness  is  twofold — holiness  of  doc- 
trine, and  holiness  of  life  and  practice.  Both  belong  to  the 
Church.  Her  teaching  must  be  holy.  Now,  holiness  of  doc- 
trine means,  first,  the  exclusion  of  all  that  is  sinful,  even  in  the 
least  degree  ;  second,  the  inculcation  and  enforcing  of  all  that 
is  most  perfect  in  holiness.  The  Church*  cannot  tolerate,  much 
less  teach,  the  least  thing  that  is  sinful,  for  Christ,  says  the 
Apostle  to  the  Ephesians,  "  loved  the  Church  and  delivered 
Himself  up  for  it,  that  He  might  present  it  to  Himself  a  glori- 
ous Church,  not  having  spot  or  wrinkle,  or  any  such  thing,  but 
that  it  should  be  holy  and  without  blemish  ;"  as  was  written  of 
this  spouse  of  God,  "  Thou  art  all  fair,  oh,  my  beloved,  and  there 
is  no  stain  in  thee."  The  Church  must  not  only  be  free  from 
the  least  sinfulness  in  her  doctrine,  but  she  must  also  teach  and 
inculcate  all  that  is  most  perfect  in  holiness.  "  Be  ye  perfect, 
even  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is  perfect ;"  for,  says  the  Apos- 
tle, "  We  preach,  admonishing  every  man,  and  teaching  every 
man  in  all  wisdom,  that  we  may  present  every  man  perfect 
in  Christ  Jesus."  (Col.  i.)  No  feature,  therefore,  of  holiness,  can 
be  neglected  or  put  aside  in  the  teaching  of  God's  Church.  But 
that  which  she  teaches  she  must  also  exhibit  in  her  life,  for  Christ 
our  Lord  describes  her  to  us  as  the  "  salt  of  the  earth  and  the 
light  of  the  world  ;"  and  He  continued :  "  A  city  seated  on  a 
mountain  cannot  be  hid,  neither  do  men  light  a  candle  and  put 
it  under  a  bushel,  but  upon  a  candlestick,  that  it  may  shine  to  all 
that  are  in  the  house.  So  let  your  light  shine  before  men,  that 
they  may  see  your  good  works,  and  glorify  your  Father  who  is 
in  heaven."  (Matt,  v.)  The  mark  of  holiness  must  therefore  be 
found,  not  only  in  the  teaching  of  Christ's  Church,  but  must  be 
also  found  embodied  in  her  life,  cherished  in  her,  and  made  a 


The  Church.  327 

part  of  her  visible  self.  She  must  be  not  only  the  preacher  of 
sanctity,  but  the  mother  of  saints.  All  that  is  high  and  heroic 
and  most  perfect  must  not  only  find  a  place  in  her  teaching,  but 
must  belong  to  her  life  and  form  her  spirit.  She  must  "  minis- 
ter in  her  faith,  virtue,  and  in  virtue,  knowledge,  and  in  knowl- 
edge, abstinence,  and  in  abstinence,  patience,  and  in  patience, 
godliness,  and  in  godliness,  love  of  brotherhood,  and  in  love  of 
brotherhood,  charity" — "  in  all  manner  of  conversation  holy,  be- 
cause it  is  written,  you  shall  be  holy,  for  I  am  holy."  (Peter,  i,  16.) 
Thus  do  we  behold  how  the  Church  of  Christ  must  be  holy  in 
faith  and  in  morals,  in  doctrine  and  in  life. 

The  Church  contemplated  in  Scripture  must,  moreover,  be 
universal.  The  Jewish  Church  was  founded  for  a  particular 
people ;  it  might  be  called  a  national  Church — the  Church  of 
Israel.  It,  moreover,  was  not  destined  to  last  forever,  but  only 
for  a  time.  The  Church  described  by  our  Lord  in  the  new  law 
was  a  contrast  to  the  Jewish  Church  in  both  these  respects.  It 
was  to  be  universal  as  to  pla(?e  and  perpetual  as  to  time.  Uni- 
versal as  to  place.  Its  doctrines  were  for  all  mankind.  "  And 
this  Gospel  of  the  kingdom  shall  be  preached  in  the  whole 
world,  for  a  testimony  to  all  nations."  (Matt.  xxiv.  14.)  "  And  He 
said  to  them,  Go  ye  into  the  whole  world,  and  preach  the 
gospel  to  every  creature."  (Mark  xvi.)  Behold,  again,  from 
St.  Matthew,  the  Church's  Catholicity — i.  e.,  universality  of 
doctrine :  "  And  Jesus  spoke  to  them,  saying,  All  power  is 
given  to  Me  in  heaven  and  in  earth.  Going,  therefore,  teach  ye 
all  nations,  baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the  Father  and  of 
the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Teaching  them  to  observe  all 
things  whatsoever  I  have  commanded  you.  And  behold,  I  am 
with  you  all  days,  even  to  the  consummation  of  the  world."  In 
these  words  of  Jesus  Christ  the  Church  is  described  as  universal 
in  place,  in  doctrine,  and  in  time. 

Finally,  the  Church  of  Christ  is  described  to  us  in  Scripture  as 
having  power  and  jurisdiction.  "As  the  Father  sent  me,  so  I 
send  you,"  says  Jesus  Christ ;  but  the  Father  sent  Him  with 
power:  "the  people  were  in  admiration  at  His  doctrine,  for  He 
was  teaching  them  as  one  having  power,  and  not  as  their  Scribes 
and  Pharisees  ;"  therefore  He  also  sent  His  Apostles  with  power : 
"  and  having  called  His  twelve  disciples  together,  He  gave  them 
power;"    and    St.   Luke:    "then  calling    together    the   twelve 


328  The  Church. 

Apostles,  He  gave  them  power  and  authority."  And  what 
manner  of  power  did  He  give  them  ?  Even  His  own  power.  My 
brethren,  "  the  Son  of  Man  hath  power  to  forgive  sin  ;"  and  to 
them  He  said,  "  Whose  sins  you  shall  forgive,  they  are  forgiven  ; 
and  whose  sins  you  shall  retain,  they  are  retained."  But,  my 
brethren,  power  and  authority  are  commissions  from  God.  They 
must,  therefore,  be  transmitted  by  the  act  of  those  who  have 
received  them  from  God.  There  must,  therefore,  be  in  the 
Christian  Church  an  actual,  clear,  living  connection  with  the 
Apostles.  The  power  which  the  Son  of  God  received  from  the 
Father,  He  gave  to  these  Apostles  for  the  salvation  of  men.  It 
did  not  expire  with  these  Apostles  (else  the  work  of  salvation 
would  have  been  interrupted  and  destroyed),  but  was  handed 
down  by  them  to  their  successors  in  the  ministry,  as  we  gather 
from  many  parts  of  the  Scripture  (notably  from  St.  Paul's  first 
Epistle  to  Timothy,  chapters  iii.  and  iv.).  It  is,  therefore,  ab- 
solutely necessary  that  the  men  who  exercise  that  power  and 
jurisdiction  to-day,  be  able  to  prove  to  us  that  they  are  the 
legitimate  descendants  of  the  Apostles  ;  that  they  come  down 
from  them  in  unbroken  line,  of  succession  uninterrupted,  of 
doctrine  unchanged,  of  power  always  exercised,  and  jurisdiction 
always  claimed.  If  the  line  be  broken,  even  in  one  single  point, 
the  hidden  spirit,  the  sacramental  power,  is  gone,  even  as  the 
electric  flash  dies,  and  is  lost  forever,  when  the  conducting  wire 
is  broken  even  in  one  smallest  point ;  if  one  link  in  the  chain  of 
apostolical  succession  be  wanting,  heaven  and  earth  are  separate 
once  more ;  the  man  who  teaches  and  guides  is  only  a  vain  pre- 
tender ;  he  who  says  that  he  can  forgive  sin  is  a  blasphemer ; 
"  the  silver  cord  is  broken,  and  the  golden  fillet  shrinks  back 
.  .  .  the  dust  returns  into  its  earth  whence  it  was,"  powerless 
for  all  healing  and  divine  purposes;  "and  the  spirit,"  once  so 
fully  and  freely  poured  out,  "  returns  to  the  God  who  gave  it." 

We  thus  clearly  see  that  a  Church,  one,  holy,  Catholic,  and 
Apostolic,  is  contemplated,  recognized,  and  described  to  us  in 
the  Scriptures. 


THE  INCARNATION. 


[Sermon   delivered  in  the  Catholic  University,  Dublin,  on  the  Fourth  Sunday  of 
Advent,  1864.] 

"  And  all  flesh  shall  see  the  salvation  of  God."  (Luke  iii.  6.) 

HE  salvation  of  which  the  Evangelist  speaks  was  ac- 
complished in  the  wonderful  mystery  of  the  Incarna- 
tion of  the  Son  of  God.  For  four  thousand  years  the 
world  was  sitting  in  darkness  and  in  the  shadow  of 
death.  "  The  hand  of  the  Lord  was  not  shortened  that  it  could 
not  save,  neither  was  His  ear  heavy  that  it  could  not  hear." 
"  But  your  iniquities  (said  the  prophet)  have  divided  be- 
tween you  and  your  God,  and  your  sins  have  hid  His  face 
from  you."  And  they  looked  for  judgment,  and  there  was 
none  ;  for  salvation,  and  it  was  far  from  them.  Meantime,  the 
prophets  sighed  and  prayed  for  the  coming  of  Him  who  was  the 
expectation  of  nations,  and  who  should  bring  salvation.  "  For 
Sion's  sake  I  will  not  hold  my  peace,  and  for  the  sake  of  Jeru- 
salem I  will  not  rest,  till  her  Just  One  come  forth  as  brightness, 

and  her  Saviour  be  lighted  as  a  lamp Look  down 

from  heaven,  O  Lord,"  he  continues,  "  and  behold  from  Thy 
holy  habitation  and  the  place  of  Thy  glory ;  where  is  Thy  zeal 
and  Thy  strength  and  the  multitude  of  Thy  mercies.  .  .  . 
Send  forth,  O  Lord,  the  Lamb,  the  ruler  of  the  earth  .  .  . 
to  the  mount  of  the  daughter  of  Sion  ....  for  Thou, 
O  Lord,  art  our  Father,  our  Redeemer,  from  everlasting 
is  Thy  name."  And  when  the  fullness  of  the  time  was  come, 
"  God  so  loved  the  world  as  to  give  His  only  begotten 
Son,"  who  for  us  men  and  for  our  salvation  came  down  from 
heaven  and  was  incarnate  by  the  Holy  Ghost  of  the  Virgin 
Mary,  and  was  made  man.     And  this  is  the  salvation  which  all 


330  The  Incarnation. 

flesh  hath  seen,  for  the  Gentiles  have  walked  in  His  light,  and 
kings  in  the  brightness  of  His  rising.  We  are  now,  dearly 
beloved  brethren,  in  the  holy  season  of  Advent,  during  which 
Holy  Church  prepares  us  by  prayer  and  fasting  for  the  coming 
of  the  Son  of  God  made  man.  It  is,  therefore,  fitting  that  we 
should,  on  this  day,  turn  our  minds  to  the  consideration  of  the 
great  mystery  which  we  commemorate — namely,  the  Incarnation 
of  the  Son  of  God. 

What  is  the  fact  commemorated  ?  Man  was  created  by  Al- 
mighty God  in  rectitude,  in  innocence,  in  justice,  and  con- 
sequently in  power.  He  was  made  little  less  than  the  angels ; 
he  was  crowned  with  honor  and  with  glory ;  but  he  did  not 
understand  he  was  compared  to  senseless  beasts,  and  made  like 
to  them.  He  fell  from  God,  and  lost  all  the  graces,  the  inno- 
cence, the  justice  in  which  he  had  been  created.  And  in  order 
to  restore  to  him  all  that  he  had  lost,  to  raise  him  up  even 
higher  than  the  point  from  which  he  had  fallen,  God  becomes 
man,  takes  to  Him  our  humanity,  and  unites  it  to  Himself  in 
His  own  divine  person.  The  Second  Person  of  the  Blessed 
Trinity,  the  eternal  and  adorable  Son,  "  who,  being  in  the  form 
of  God,  thought  it  not  robbery  to  be  equal  with  God,  emptied 
Himself,  taking  the  form  of  a  servant,  being  made  in  the  likeness 
of  men,  and  in  habit  found  as  a  man.  He  humbled  Himself, 
becoming  obedient  unto  death,  even  to  the  death  of  the  cross." 
"  The  invisible  things  of  God  are  clearly  seen,  being  understood 
by  the  things  that  are  made,"  says  the  Apostle ;  and,  concludes 
St.  John  Damascus,  in  the  mystery  of  the  Incarnation  we  clearly 
see  the  four  great  attributes  of  Almighty  God — namely,  goodness, 
wisdom,  justice,  and  power.  We  behold  in  this  mystery  the 
infinite  goodness  of  Almighty  God,  for  He  despised  not  the 
lowliness  of  His  own  creatures,  though  fallen,  for  He  took 
humanity  unto  Himself.  We  see  the  justice  of  Almighty  God, 
for  as  man  had  fallen  under  the  power  of  the  devil  and  sin  and 
death,  it  was  just  that  these  tyrants  should  in  their  turn  be 
crushed  and  conquered  by  a  man,  and  this  was  done  by  the 
Man,  Jesus  Christ,  who  cast  out  the  devil,  who  took  away  the 
sin  of  the  world,  and  who,  by  His  death  and  resurrection,  con- 
quered  death,  so  that  it  can  have  no  more  dominion  over  Him. 
In  the  mystery  of  the  Incarnation,  continues  St.  John,  we  dis« 
tern  the  supreme  wisdom  of  Almighty  God,  who,  in  His  own 


The  Incarnation.  331 

person,  paid  in  most  fitting  manner  a  debt  which  was  infinite  ; 
and  finally,  we  behold  in  this  mystery  the  power  of  God,  for 
nothing  can  be  greater  than  that  God  should  become  man.  But 
not  only  do  we  see  the  divine  attributes  in  the  mystery  of  our 
Lord's  Incarnation,  but  we  find  still  further,  that  these  very 
attributes  are  the  reason  why  the  mystery  was  accomplished. 
For  when  St.  Thomas  wishes  to  prove  that  it  was  fitting  that 
God  should  become  man,  he  grounds  his  argument  on  the  infi- 
nite goodness  of  God ;  for,  says  the  Angelic  Doctor,  whatever 
belongs  to  the  nature  of  any  person  or  thing  is  fitting  for  it, 
as  it  is  fitting  that  man  should  reason  because  it  belongs  to 
his  nature.  Now,  it  is  in  the  very  nature  of  goodness  that  it 
should  communicate  itself  to  others  ;  therefore  it  is  the  very 
nature  of  supreme  goodness  that  it  s-hould  communicate  it- 
self in  a  supreme — that  is,  in  a  most  intimate  manner.  But 
what  communication  can  be  more  intimate  than  that  which  we 
find  in  our  Lord's  Incarnation,  when,  to  use  the  words  of  St. 
Augustine,  He  so  joined  to  Himself  our  created  nature  that 
one  person  was  the  union  of  three  things — the  Eternal  Word, 
the  human  soul,  and  human  flesh.  Therefore,  concludes  the 
master,  it  was  fitting  that  God  should  be  made  man.  O  Al- 
mighty God,  infinite  in  mercy,  in  wisdom,  in  power,  it  is  easy 
for  us  now  to  say  it  was  fitting  that  Thou  shouldst  come  to 
us,  and  that  Thou  shouldst  raise  us  up  to  Thee  ;  but  had  not 
Thy  mercy  and  Thine  infinite  love  prompted  Thee  to  do  this, 
what  mind  could  have  conceived  it  as  possible,  what  daring 
intelligence  could  have  imagined  it  ?  %  The  Angelic  Doctor  goes 
on  to  ask,  was  it  necessary  that  God  should  be  made  man  ? 
To  this  St.  Augustine  answers,  that  certainly  other  means 
were  not  wanting  by  which  the  omnipotence  of  God  might 
have  restored  our  fallen  humanity,  but  that  no  other  means 
was  so  admirably  suited  to  the  end  of  healing  our  infirmity 
and  misery  as  the  Incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God.  Wrien  we 
consider  what  is  required  of  man  in  order  to  his  eternal  happi- 
ness, we  shall  understand  better  this  saying  of  St.  Augustine. 
First,  then,  Almighty  God  demands  of  man  faith,  hope,  and 
charity,  for,  says  the  Apostle,  "  without  faith  it  is  impossible  to 
please  God,"  and  elsewhere  he  says,  "  for  we  are  saved  by  hope," 
and  again,  "  if  I  speak  with  the  tongues  of  men  and  of  angels, 
.     .     and  if  I  should  know  all  mysteries  and  all  knowledge,     . 


332  The  Incarnation. 

and  if  I  should  deliver  my  body  to  be  burned,  and  have  not  charity 
it  profiteth  me  nothing."  Now,  man  is  assisted  in  the  exercise 
of  these  three  necessary  virtues  by  the  Incarnation  of  the  Son  of 
God.  First,  in  faith,  for  through  this  mystery  God  Himself  comes 
to  us,  remains  in  the  midst  of  us,  and  instructs  us  in  our  faith  with 
His  own  words.  Wherefore,  St.  Augustine  observes,  "  in  order 
that  man  might  walk  more  confidently  towards  truth,  the 
Eternal  Truth  Himself,  taking  our  human  nature,  establishes  in 
His  own  person  and  grounds  our  faith."  In  hope,  which  is 
raised  up  and  strengthened  by  this  mystery.  "  Nothing  was  so 
necessary,"  says  St.  Augustine,  "  in  order  to  strengthen  our 
hope,  than  that  man  should  know  how  much  God  loved  him  ;" 
for  this  love  and  mercy  of  God  is  the  groundwork  of  our  hope. 
"  But  what  greater  sign  of  love  could  God  give  us  than  to  take 
to  Him  our  nature  and  espouse  our  humanity."  And,  therefore, 
when  the  same  great  father  would  assign  the  first  great  reason 
that  moved  Almighty  God  to  this,  he  says  that  it  was  charity — 
a  charity  not  merely  burning  in  the  heart  of  our  Creator,  but  a 
charity  which  would  extend  itself  to  our  hearts  also  ;  for,  says 
the  saint,  "  what  greater  cause  can  be  given  for  the  coming  of 
our  Lord  than  that  He  should  reveal  His  love  in  us."  Man  had 
become  the  slave  of  his  senses,  which  led  him  away  from  God ; 
and  behold,  God,  yearning  for  the  love  of  this  fallen  creature, 
presents  Himself  to  us  in  sensible  shape,  that  we  might  be  led 
to  love  Him.  .  Man  had  filled  his  heart  with  the  love  of  crea- 
tures, thereby  forgetting  God  and  salvation  ;  and  behold  God, 
longing  for  the  possession  of  that  heart  of  man,  becomes  a  crea- 
ture, that  so  He  might  entice  us  to  love  Him.  But,  besides  the 
three  theological  virtues,  man  required  also  to  be  instructed  in 
moral  virtues,  and  in  order  to  this,  God  would  give  us  His  own 
infallible  example,  thereby  to  guide  us  in  the  fulfillment  of  the 
moral  law  and  the  precepts  of  virtue.  Before  His  coming,  man- 
kind was  led  away  by  the  false  maxims  of  an  ungodly  wisdom. 
They  followed  the  schools  and  studied  the  lives  of  philosophers 
who,  by  word  and  example,  set  up  a  false  standard  of  moral 
virtue,  and  who  were  as  "  blind  men  leading  the  blind."  They 
could  not  be  followed  with  safety ;  "  their  end  was  destruction.' 
Man,  says  St.  Augustine,  was  not  to  be  followed,  who  could  be 
seen  and  heard.  God  was  to  be  followed,  but  he  could  not  be 
seen.     In  order,  then,  that  man  might  have  one  whom  he  could 


The  Incarnation.  333 

see  and  hear  as  man,  and  whom  he  could  follow  as  God,  the 
Lord  God  Himself  became  man."  Oh,  wonderful  work  of  con- 
descending love  and  mercy  ! 

But  the  love  of  God  for  man  in  the  Lord's  Incarnation  does 
not  stop  here.  By  uniting  our  nature  to  Himself,  He  communi- 
cates to  it  the  full  participation  of  His  divinity,  which  is  the  very 
supreme  blessedness  of  man  and  the  great  end  of  human  life  ; 
so  that,  by  the  mystery  of  the  Incarnation,  we  are  made  "  par- 
takers of  the  divine  nature,"  for,  says  St.  Augustine,  "  God  be- 
came man,  that  man  might  become  God  ;"  according  to  the 
words  of  the  Psalmist,  "  I  have  said  you  are  Gods."  The  ex- 
traordinary dignity  thus  conferred  upon  mankind,  arises  out  of 
the  hypostatical  or  personal  union  of  our  nature  with  the  divine 
nature  in  Him.  Man  is  made  up  of  body  and  soul,  and  from 
the  union  of  body  and  soul — of  spirit  and  matter — results  a 
human  person.  Now,  our  blessed  Lord,  in  His  Incarnation,  took 
a  human  body  and  a  human  soul,  with  all  their  distinci  faculties 
and  powers  ;  and  yet,  from  the  union  of  these  two  elements 
there  did  not  result  a  human  person,  as  in  the  case  of  all  other 
creatures,  but  at  the  moment  of  His  divine  conception,  the  Word 
— the  Second  Person  of  the  Blessed  Trinity — substituted  His 
own  divine  person  for  the  human  ;  so  that,  although  there  was  a 
human  body  formed  from  the  most  pure  blood  of  the  Virgin 
Mother,  and  a  human  soul  created  by  the  breath  of  God — yet 
the  fruit  of  Mary's  womb  was  not  a  human  but  a  divine  person. 
Therefore  is  she  truly  the  Mother  of  God,  because  the  person  who 
was  born  of  her  was  divine.  In  our  blessed  Redeemer,  then, 
we  find  all  that  is  God  and  all  that  is  man  united  in  one  person. 
Hence,  there  are  in  Him  two  natures — the  human  and  the  divine 
— two  wills,  the  divine  and  the  human — two  relations,  one  the 
eternal,  By  which  He  is  the  Son  of  God — the  other  the  temporal, 
by  which  He  is  the  Son  of  the  ever-blessed  Virgin,  and  yet  only 
'one  person.  And  as  the  actions  and  sufferings  are  attributed 
not  to  the  nature  but  to  the  person,  therefore  the  actions  and 
sufferings  of  our  Lord  were  of  infinite  value  and  merit,  because 
the  person  who  acted  and  suffered  was  divine.  By  this  personaJ 
union  God  so  united  to  Him  our  humanity  as  that  He  espoused 
it  for  ever,  making  it  as  it  were  a  portion  of  Himself,  never  again 
to  be  separated  from  Him  ;  so  that  even  when  He  died  upon  Cal- 
vary, although  soul  and  body  were  separated  for  a  time,  yet  the 


334  The  Incarnation. 

divinity  and  humanity  remained  united,  and  the  angds  of 
heaven  adored  their  God,  even  when  He  hung  dead  upon  the 
cross.  And  thus,  as  God  and  man  united,  will  He  come  to  judge 
the  world,  and  thus,  as  God  and  man  united  in  one  person,  will 
He  reign  in  heaven  for  all  eternity,  "  Jesus  Christ  yesterday, 
and  to-day,  and  the  same  forever."  This  most  intimate  union 
is  the  effect  of  God's  infinite  love  for  man.  God  is  not  satisfied 
with  redeeming,  but  He  will  raise  up  and  honor  those  whom  He 
redeems.  "  What  is  man,  that  Thou  art  mindful  of  him,  or  the 
son  of  man,  that  thou  shouldst  visit  him,"  and  the  Lord  God 
answers  in  the  adorable  mystery  of  the  Incarnation,  "  Man  is 
something  less  than  My  angels — behold,  I  will  make  him  the 
angels'  king.  Man  has  lost  his  throne  in  heaven — behold,  I  will 
place  him  on  a  throne  above  the  cherubim.  Man  has  become 
the  slave  of  the  devil — behold,  I  will  make  the  devils  bow  down 
and  adore  him — I  will  be  his  Jesus,  his  Saviour,  and  at  the 
name  of  Jesus,  every  knee  shall  bend  in  heaven,  and  on  earth, 
and  in  hell.  With  the  Lord  there  is  mercy,  and  with  Him  plen- 
tiful redemption,  so  that  where  sin  abounded,  grace  hath 
abounded  still  more.  But  in  order  to  accomplish  this  mercy, 
see  what  it  cost  the  Eternal  Son  of  God.  "  He  emptied  Him- 
self, taking  the  form  of  a  servant."  He,  "who,  being  the  bright- 
ness of  the  Father's  glory  and  the  figure  of  His  substance,  up- 
holding all  things  by  the  word  of  His  power  .  .  .  sat  on  the 
right  hand  of  the  majesty  on  high,"  came  down  from  that  high 
throne — put  away  His  glory — shrouded  His  brightness — anni- 
hilated His  majesty — emptied  Himself  of  His  power,  and  be- 
came a  servant,  a  slave — the  last  and  lowliest  of  a  fallen  and 
degraded  race.  He  to  whom  from  all  eternity  the  Father  said, 
"  Thou  art  My  Son,  to-day  have  I  begotten  Thee,"  becomes  the 
son  of  an  humble,  obscure  virgin,  so  that  the  Jews  sneered  at 
His  teaching  and  said,  "  Is  not  this  the  son  of  Joseph  and  of 
Mary?  "  He  of  whom  it  was  said  in  heaven,  "  Let  all  the  angels 
of  God  adore  Him,"  and  "thy  throne,  O  God,  is  for  ever  and 
ever,"  becomes  as  a  worm  of  the  earth,  a  castaway  even  amongst 
men,  without  a  friend  to  cherish  Him,  or  a  place  wherein  to  lay 
His  head.  (O  God,  exclaimed  the  prophet,  who  foresaw  all  this, 
"  who  hath  believed  our  report,  and  to  whom  is  the  arm  of 
the  Lord  revealed — for  we  have  seen  Him — despised  and  the 
most  abject  of  men,  a  man  of  sorrows  and  acquainted  with  in- 


The  Incarnation.  335 

firmity."  In  the  year  that  king  Ozias  died,  says  the  prophet,  "  I 
saw  the  Lord  sitting  upon  a  throne,  high  and  elevated  ;  and  His 
train  filled  the  temple.  Upon  it  stood  the  seraphims ;  the  on* 
had  six  wings  and  the  other  had  six  wings ;  with  two  they 
covered  His  face,  and  with  two  they  covered  His*  feet,  and  with 
two  they  flew.  And  they  cried  one  to  another  and  said,  Holy, 
Holy,  Holy,  the  Lord  God  of  Hosts,  all  the  earth  is  full  of  His 
glory.  And  the  lintels  of  the  doors  were  moved  at  the  voice 
of  them  that  cried,  and  the  house  was  filled  with  smoke.  And 
I  said,  woe  is  me  because  ....  I  have  seen  with  my  eyes 
the  King,  the  Lord  of  Hosts."  Now,  Christians,  behold  in  spirit 
the  poor  little  trembling  babe  in  the  wretched  stable  at  Bethlehem 
— behold  upon  Calvary  the  victim  on  the  cross,  despised  and 
the  most  abject  of  men,  a  man  of  sorrows  and  acquainted  with 
infirmity.  This  is  the  King  of  heaven,  the  Lord  God  of  Hosts, 
whom  the  prophet  saw,  and  to  this  has  his  love  for  man  reduced 
Him  in  the  adorable  mystery  of  His  Incarnation.  How  then 
should  we  not  love  Him.  How  should  we  not  deny  ourselves 
for  love  of  Him.  How  should  we  not  for  love  of  Him  restrain 
our  passions,  extinguish  the  lusts  of  a  rebellious  flech,  and  re- 
spect our  bodies  and  the  purity  of  that  human  nature  which  is 
now  common  to  us  and  to  our  God,  in  which,  by  dishonoring 
ourselves,  we  outrage  the  infinite  purity  of  Jesus  Christ,  and 
make  the  slave  of  passion,  of  sin,  and  of  the  devil,  and  of  death, 
that  humanity  which  now  reigns  in  heaven,  and  which  the  angels 
of  God  adore. 


ACTIVITY  OF  FAITH. 


[Sermon  delivered  in  the  Church  ot  Santa  Maria  del  Popolo,  Rome,  on  the  Third 
Sunday  of  Lent,  1869.] 

HE  Catholic  Church  is  a  puzzle  to  the  world.  Men 
reproach  her  for  her  ambition,  in  desiring  the  first  place 
and  brooking  no  rival.  Not  content  with  laboring  for 
her  own  children,  she  is  constantly  trying  to  convert 
others  to  her  faith,  and  disturbing  the  world  in  her  search  aftel 
proselytes  ;  thrusting  her  theology  and  her  disputes  undej 
people's  noses,  distracting  men  from  their  business,  disturbing 
the  peace  and  quiet  of  families,  compromising  Christian  nations 
with  the  heathen  by  the  efforts  of  her  missionaries.  She  won't 
leave  the  Chinaman  to  smoke  his  opium  in  peace  or  the  Japan- 
ese to  hug  himself  in  his  isolation,  but  she  must  provoke  them 
to  acts  of  .cruelty  and  persecution.  She  must  be  building 
churches,  founding  missions,  establishing  orders,  spreading  con- 
vents, fighting,  disputing,  criticizing,  and  even  anathematizing. 
The  world  tries  to  silence  and  quiet  her,  now  by  contempt,  now 
by  threats,  now  by  getting  angry  and  making  nasty  laws,  and 
yet  she  will  persist  in  making  herself  heard  and  felt.  Every 
now  and  then,  an  English  or  American  paper  will  come  out 
with  a  cry  of  alarm  :  Hallo  !  where  are  we  ?  These  Catholics 
are  going  to  devour  us.  Look  at  England !  Ten  years  ago 
there  were  only  so  many  bishops,  so  many  churches,  so  many 
monasteries,  and  now  they  are  doubled  or  trebled.  Look  at 
America  !  Why,  we  are  all  going  to  be  made  Romans  whether  we 
will  it  or  not,  etc.,  etc.  Contrast  the  Catholic  Church's  perpet- 
ual turmoil  with  the  placid  quiet  of  the  Oriental  Churches.  Com- 
pare her  fierce  ambition  with  the  modest  bearing  of  the  Church 
of  England,  etc.     And  turning  from  the  Church  to  individuals. 


Activity  of  Faith.  337 

the  world  complains  that  we  Catholics  are  always  at  work,  in 
triguing  as  they  say — disturbing.  Look  at  these  Jesuits — you 
find  them  everywhere  ;  we  are  constantly  offended  by  the  sight 
of  Catholic  priests,  Catholic  books,  Catholic  crucifixes,  Catholic 
nuns.  Every  one  received  into  the  Church  seems  to  be  suddenly 
changed  and  deteriorated,  filled  with  an  unquiet  spirit,  a  long- 
ing, a  thirst  to  bring  in  others.  Such  a  man  as  a  Protestant 
was  a  quiet,  gentlemanly  fellow,  not  bothering  his  own  head  or 
his  friends  about  religion  ;  doing  the  genteel  thing,  going  to 
church  on  Sunday ;  but  he  got  bitten  by  those  ritualists,  and 
he's  gone  over  to  Rome  and  gone  regularly  mad.  He's  con- 
stantly talking  about  religion,  he  goes  to  mass  at  strange  hours 
in  the  morning,  he  can't  get  on  without  his  priest,  me/i  say  that 
he  has  lost  interest  in  many  things,  and  hint  that  he  is  thinking 
of  joining  one  of  the  orders  and  going  to  get  murdered  in  the 
Chinese  missions,  or  to  kill  himself  slaving  in  the  slums  and 
hospitals  of  some  great  city.  On  the  other  hand,  we  children 
of  the  Church,  also,  are  struck  with  the  amazing  energy  of  our 
mother.  We  know  her  to  be  the  oldest  institution  in  the  world, 
yet  we  see  in  her  no  sign  of  old  age.  Old  age  means  and  brings 
with  it  a  cessation  of  growth,  a  wasting  away,  a  decline  of 
strength,  an  apathy  and  neglect  of  the  purposes  of  life,  a  second 
childhood.  But  the  Church  is  acknowledged,  even  by  her  ene- 
mies, to  be  as  fresh  and  vigorous  as  she  was  two  thousand  years 
ago.  She  still  grows,  and  the  aged  mustard-tree  puts  forth  leaf 
and  branch,  flower  and  fruit,  in  every  land.  She  questions  every 
comer,  ey amines  every  doctrine,  prescribes  for  every  moral  dis- 
ease, denounces  and  punishes  every  crime,  with  as  keen  an  in- 
terest and  as  vital  an  energy  as  in  the  days  when  the  Apostolic 
Council  sat  in  Jerusalem,  when  John  the  Evangelist  denounced 
Cerinthus,  when  Paul  excommunicated  the  incestuous  Corin- 
thian, when  Peter  preached  in  Corinth  and  in  Rome.  The  secret 
of  all  this  is  faith,  and  it  is  to  this  that  I  invite  your  attention 
to-day.  Friends  admire  and  enemies  decry  the  activity  of  the 
Catholic  Church  and  of  her  children,  but  friends  and  enemies 
alike  admit  it.  We  are  accused  of  many  things,  but  no  one 
dreams  of  accusing  the  Church  of  apathy,  of  indifference.  Nay, 
our  very  activity  is  the  foundation  for  those  charges  of  ambition, 
of  intrigue,  of  restless  zeal,  of  troublesome  intermeddling,  etc., 
which  are  made  against  us ;  and  yet,  if  we  reflect  upon  the  nature 

22 


338  Activity  of  Faith. 

of  divine  faith,  we  shall  find  that  this  very  activity  is  one  of  its 
essential  attributes,  one  of  the  signs  whereby  it  may  be  known 
to  exist  amongst  men.  For,  my  brethren,  faith,  as  we  have  seen, 
is  the  image  of  God,  the  reflection  in  the  intelligence  of  man  of 
that  truth  which  is  God  himself.  And  consequently,  faith  must 
not  only  be  one,  as  we  have  seen,  because  God  is  essentially  One, 
but  it  must  also  be  active,  because  God  is  pure,  essential,  and 
eternal  action.  God  is  pure  action.  "  Deus  est  actus  purus" 
says  St.  Thomas,  the  prince  of  Catholic  theologians.  This  is  a 
high  and  mysterious  saying.  Let  us  consider  it.  In  every  being 
created  we  find  elements  of  composition  or  division,  but  God  is 
simple,  essential,  and  eternal  unity.  Of  creatures,  the  angels 
come  neatest  to  God,  in  that  they  are  pure  spirits,  and  yet  even 
in  the  angels  we  find  power  as  distinguished  and  separated  from 
action.  They  received  the  power  or  capability  of  loving  before 
they  loved,  the  power  of  comprehension  before  they  compre- 
hended, etc.  But  as  God  is  eternal  and  all  perfect,  therefore 
He  never  began  to  comprehend  or  to  love,  as  His  very  essence 
and  existence  is  comprehension  and  love.  He  never  received 
nor  could  receive  any  perfection,  as  He  was  from  eternity  all 
perfect,  and  so  the  very  nature  and  essence  of  God  brings  with 
it  of  necessity  that  He  is  pure  action.  What  an  idea  does  not 
this  give  us  of  the  greatness,  the  infinite  perfection  of  God. 
"  From  eternity  and  of  old  before  the  earth  was  made,"  before 
the  heavens  were  established,  before  the  angels  were  created, 
during  an  eternity  that  had  never  begun,  God,  alone,  was  never 
for  a  moment  idle  or  inactive,  but  ever  contemplating,  ever  lov- 
ing, infinitely  glorified  in  His  own  perfection,  infinitely  happy  in 
the  contemplation  of  Himself. 

And  when  time  began  with  things  created,  mark  how  the 
Almighty  God  set  the  stamp  on  all  things  of  that  essential  life 
and  action  which  is  His  own  essence.  From  the  angels  down 
to  the  humblest  form  of  things  that  exist,  the  whole  creation 
teems  with  motion  and  life.  The  planets,  the  sea,  the  earth — 
all  moves  and  lives  with  its  own  peculiar  life — for  motion,  spon- 
taneous, is  the  very  definition  of  life.  Whatever  moves  spon- 
taneously is  said  to  live ;  but  there  are  many  degrees  in  life,  and 
the  more  the  motion  of  life  is  ruled  and  governed  by  intelli- 
gence, the  nearer  does  that  life  approach  to  the  essential  life, 
which  is  God ;  and  so  of  things  on  this  earth,  the  life  of  man  is 


Activity  of  Faith.  339 

the  highest  and  the  most  Godlike,  ir.  that  man  beyond  all  other 
beings  here,  is  moved  and  guided  by  intellect  and  the  freedom 
of  his  will.  But,  if  we  are  able  to  perceive  so  clearly,  even  in 
the  natural  order,  and  in  the  universal  motion  and  action  of 
things  material,  the  reflection  of  that  pure  essential  action, 
which  is  the  life  of  God,  how  much  more  may  we  not  look  for 
this  element  of  activity,  when  we  pass  to  the  supernatural  order, 
and  come  still  nearer  to  God.  When  we  consider  man  no 
longer  in  his  mere  natural  resemblance,  but  in  the  far  higher 
and  more  intimate  resemblance  of  divine  grace ;  when  we 
look  upon  the  human  intelligence,  no  longer  quickened  to  vital 
intellectual  action  by  natural  knowledge  only,  but  urged  and 
impelled  by  the  supernatural  knowledge  of  all  divine  things, 
brought  into  immediate  contact  with  that  divine  intelligence, 
which  is  an  eternal  and  pure  act  of  comprehension,  and  in  that 
contact  of  faith  made  like  to  God,  who  is  action  itself ;  here, 
indeed,  may  we  look  for  and  hope  to  find  in  man  an  element  of 
strength,  of  endurance,  of  progress,  and  untiring  action,  as  far 
beyond  the  mere  life  and  motion  of  nature  as  the  strong  light 
of  faith  is  beyond  all  mere  natural  knowledge,  as  the  resem- 
blance of  grace  is  beyond  that  of  nature.  To  sum  up  then,  the 
life  of  God  is  one  eternal,  essential,  pure,  active  intelligence. 
All  that  lives,  moves,  and  acts  (for  life  is  motion  and  action)  so 
far  participates  of  the  essential  life  of  God.  Man  is  said  to  live 
with  a  most  perfect  life,  because  intellectual,  and  so  nearer  to 
God  in  resemblance.  Man  again  is  capable  of  receiving  a  far 
higher  degree  of  intellectual  resemblance  to  the  divine  life  of 
God  by  faith,  which  brings  him  into  closest  union  of  intelli- 
gence with  his  Maker ;  and  so  we  conclude  that  if  God  be  pure 
action,  actus  purus,  if  approach  to  God  by  resemblance  of  life 
be  action,  if  the  nearer  we  approach  to  God,  the  more  do  we 
share  in  the  life  which  is  essential  action,  that  virtue  which 
brings  us  to  the  highest  resemblance  with  God,  the  Father  of 
light  and  intelligence,  must  also  be  an  element  of  the  highest 
activity  in  man,  and  that  virtue  is  faith.  When,  therefore,  men 
acknowledge  the  untiring  energy  of  the  Catholic  Church  when 
they  reproach  her  for  that  very  Zealand  energy,  disguising  it  under 
the  names  of  ambition,  of  restlessness,  of  a  spirit  of  intermeddling, 
etc.,  they  unconsciously  proclaim  the  note  of  a  divine  life  in- 
fused into  the  Church  by  faith.     The    Catholic  Church  is  the 


340  Activity  of  Faith. 

congregation  of  all  the  faithful.  She  must,  therefore,  reflect 
their  united  life.  But  the  Apostle  tells  us  that  the  just  man 
lives  by  faith,  i.  e.,  faith  is  the  principle  of  his  supernatural 
life,  the  root  of  justification,  ergo,  the  faith  is  the  life  of  the 
Church.  But  as  the  definition  of  life  is  motion,  and  the  proof 
of  life  is  action,  it  follows  that  the  faith  which  is  the  Church's 
life  must  ever  move  her  forward,  and  prove  its  existence  by  con- 
stant and  powerful  action  on  the  world.  And  unto  this  did 
Jesus  Christ  institute  His  Church,  and  place  her  in  this  world, 
that  she  might  "  go  forth  unto  her  work  and  to  her  labor  until 
the  evening."  That  she  might  toil  and  "  bear  the  burden  of 
the  day  and  the  heat,"  still  energetically  doing  the  work  of 
Him  who  sent  her,  after  His  own  divine  example,  who  said, 
"  the  Father  worketh  even  until  now,  and  I  work."  And  the 
Church's  work  in  this  world  is  nothing  more  than  the  con- 
tinuation of  Christ's  own  life  and  work.  She  must  preach  and 
teach  at  all  times,  "  in  season  and  out  of  season,"  for  "  He 
was  teaching  daily  in  the  temple,"  and  He  commanded  her  to 
"  teach  all  nations  and  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  every  creature." 
And  so  the  Church,  which  sent  the  Apostles  and  their  succes- 
sors to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  sends  forth  her  preachers  and  mis- 
sionaries as  vigorously  to-day  as  she  did  in  the  days  of  old, 
when  Thomas,  the  Apostle,  penetrated  to  farthest  India,  when 
Paul  disputed  at  Athens,  when  Dionysius,  the  Areopagite,  con- 
verted the  Northern  Gauls,  later  on,  when  Patrick  brought  the 
word  to  a  land  which  the  all-conquering  Roman  had  never 
seen,  when  the  children  of  Patrick  spread  the  faith  amongst 
the  islands  of  the  northern  seas,  preached  the  Gospel  to  the 
wild  sons  of  the  German  forests,  brought  back  into  Italy  itself, 
the  land  whence  they  had  received  their  Apostle,  new  forms  of 
Christian  holiness  and  grace.  The  Church  is  as  vigorous  to- 
day as  when  she  sent  Augustine  to  England,  as  when  St.  Hya- 
cinth penetrated  into  the  fastnesses  of  Red  Russia  and  Tartary, 
as  when  her  missionaries  followed  in  the  wake  of  the  discov- 
erers of  another  world,  crossing  the  trackless  and  unknown 
ocean  to  gain  souls  to  Christ.  Every  land  has  heard  her  voice, 
and  hears  it  still,  "  in  omnium  terram,"  etc.  She  has  been  at  all 
times  persecuted,  she  is  persecuted  everywhere  to-day.  Fiercely 
persecuted,  robbed,  plundered,  proscribed,  put  to  death,  in 
Russia,  in  Sweden,  Denmark,  Norway,  in  many  parts  of  Ger- 


Activity  of  Faith.  341 

many,  in  Italy,  Spain,  Portugal,  in  China  and  Japan,  in  Mexico 
and  South  America;  fettered  by  unjust  laws  or  barely  toler- 
ated in  England,  Ireland,  France,  Austria,  Prussia,  Turkey, 
North  America.  The  whole  world  is  against  her,  yet  it  cannot 
silence  the  voice  which  Christ  commanded  to  speak,  and  to 
speak  loudly,  unto  the  end  of  all  time.  In  times  past  her  mis- 
sionaries landed  on  the  shores  of  persecuting  England,  only  to 
encounter  certain  imprisonment,  exile,  or  death.  To-day  the 
same  missionaries  are  thrown  upon  the  coast  of  China  or  Japan, 
to  plant  the  mustard-seed,  if  only  in  one  heart,  and  then  die 
and  fertilize  it  with  their  blood.  And  how  strange  that  the 
nations  should  fear  one  so  weak,  whose  only  shield  is  faith, 
whose  only  weapon  is  "  the  sword  of  the  spirit,  which  is  the 
word  of  God ;"  should  fear  her,  and  yet  take  from  her  mouth 
the  word  of  faith  which  she  preaches,  and  which  is  so  opposed 
to  the  natural  instincts  and  passions  of  man.  For  the  Church 
will  not  conceal  nor  soften  down  nor  modify  one  iota  of  her 
message  of  truth.  She  cannot  compromise  with  any  age  or 
people,  no  matter  what  she  lose  or  gain.  Christ,  our  Lord, 
might  have  got  on  much  better  with  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees, 
if  He  winked  at  their  sins  and  was  silent.  Had  He  been  a  false 
prophet,  He  would  have  done  so,  as  Balaam  did  with  Balac,  the 
son  of  Sephor.  Or  He  would  have  escaped  the  furious  jealousy 
of  Herod,  the  timorous  fears  of  Pilate,  had  He  denied  His 
kingly  dignity  or  concealed  it.  The  people  would  not  have 
taken  up  stones  to  cast  at  Him,  had  He  compromised  the  asser- 
tion of  His  divinity.  So,  in  like  manner,  the  Church  would 
have  avoided  much  persecution  if  she  compromised  with  Con- 
stantius  or  other  Greek  emperors  the  question  of  consubstan- 
tiality,  with  Paleologus  the  question  of  images,  if  she  ceded  to 
Russia  the  question  of  the  primacy,  if  she  had  permitted  to 
Frederick  of  Germany  the  right  of  investitute,  or  had  winked 
at  the  adultery  of  Henry  the  Eighth  of  England. 

The  second  feature  of  Christ's  work,  and  evidence  of  the  life 
that  was  in  Him,  was  the  virtue  that  went  out  from  Him  unto 
ali,  healing  both  soul  and  body,  "  virtus  de  Mo  cxibat  ct  sanabat 
omnes."  Instance  the  paralytic  man  :  "  Thy  sins  are  forgiven 
thee,"  "take  up  thy  bed  and  walk." 

An  1  here  again  we  behold  the  energy  of  unfailing  life  in  the 
Holy  Catholic  Church.     In  the  administration  of  the  seven  sac- 


342  Activity  of  Faith. 

raments,  she  is  ever  seeking  to  purify,  to  save,  to  sanctify 
society  and  the  individual.  As  her  zeal  for  the  preaching  of 
the  faith  is  stirred  up  in  her,  from  her  knowledge  of  its  neces- 
sity, so  her  untiring  zeal  in  the  ministration  of  the  sacra- 
ments arises  out  of  her  knowledge  of  the  necessity  of  divine 
grace. 

For  truly  these  are  the  two  great  wants  of  our  age — faith  and 
divine  grace.  Our  age  abounds  in  learning,  well  diffused,  and 
science  brought  home  to  the  people  through  a  thousand  chan- 
nels. But  learning  and  science  are  not  faith,  and  the  sin  of  our 
age  lies  in  failing  to  see  that  no  knowledge,  however  extended 
or  profound,  can  be  incompatible  with  the  simple  obedient  bow- 
ing down  of  the  intelligence  to  divine  truth  and  to  the  voice  of 
its  messenger.  Faith  is  the  queen  of  all  science  :  in  the  loftiness 
of  its  object,  which  is  God ;  in  the  certainty  of  its  knowledge, 
which  rests  on  the  truth  of  God  ;  in  the  manner  of  acquiring  it, 
which  is  by  gift  and  revelation  of  God ;  and  yet  the  studious 
man  of  our  day  who  spends  his  life  in  the  pursuit  of  truth,  re- 
jects the  primary  truth  of  all,  and,  imposing  upon  his  intellect  a 
burden  which  it  was  never  intended  or  designed  to  bear,  seeks 
to  arrive  by  reason  at  that  which  can  only  be  attained  by  listen- 
ing to  the  voice  of  authority,  the  true  knowledge  of  God  and  of 
all  that  He  has  revealed  to  man.  A  man  who  would  not  think 
of  appealing  to  his  reason,  but  to  authority,  to  prove  the  exist- 
ence of  China  and  the  manners  and  customs  of  the  Chinese, 
must,  forsooth,  repudiate  authority  and  appeal  only  to  his  reason 
to  discover  and  to  prove  the  things  of  heaven  and  the  dealings 
of  Almighty  God.  "  But  faith  comes  by  hearing,  and  hearing 
by  the  word  of  God,"  and,  therefore,  the  Catholic  Church  will 
speak  "  in  season  and  out  of  season  "  the  word  by  which  alone 
men  can  be  saved,  the  word  which  she  alone  possesses,  "  the 
word  of  God,  the  word  of  faith  which  we  preach."  She  asks  no 
man  to  believe  her  until  she  has  proved  her  mission,  for  "  how 
shall  they  preach  unless  they  be  sent  ?"  That  mission  she  proves 
by  tracing  in  an  unbroken  chain  of  doctrine  and  jurisdiction  the 
power  she  possesses  to-day  up  to  the  day  when  the  hands  of 
Christ  were  upon  the  head  of  Peter.  Not  a  single  link  in  that 
chain  is  wanting;  and  the  preacher  and  teacher  in  the  Catholic 
Church  is  sent  by  Pius,  who  is  cf  Gregory,  who  was  of  Pius, 
who  was  of  Leo,  and  so  on  from  one  to  another  until  we  say 


Activity  of  Faith.  343 

who  was  of  Clement,  who  was  of  Cletus,  who  was  of  Linus,  who 
was  of  Peter,  who  was  of  Christ,  who  was  of  God. 

It  is  no  self-commissioned  pretender  whose  voice  we  hear 
when  we  listen  to  the  words  of  the  Catholic  Church.  Mission 
is  the  test  of  authority,  and  that  mission  the  Catholic  Church 
alone  possesses  and  can  prove.  What  wonder,  then,  that  her 
voice  should  be  ever  heard,  since  it  is  her  destiny  to  lift  up  that 
voice  to  instruct  and  warn  men  and  nations.  What  wonder 
that  with  an  energy  which  the  world  calls  restlessness  and 
ambition,  but  which  we  know  to  be  inseparable  from  divine  life, 
she  addresses  herself  to  us  on  all  questions  of  faith  and  morality, 
and  will  permit  no  man  to  be  lost  until  she  has  wearied  him 
with  her  importunities  to  be  saved.  With  the  same  constancy 
and  energy  with  which  she  appeals  to  those  without  to  be  en- 
lightened, does  she  appeal  to  her  own  children  to  be  sanctified. 
To  every  Catholic  sinner  she  cries  without  ceasing,  "  Return  to 
the  Lord  thy  God,"  "  Confess  thy  sins  and  give  glory  to  God," 
"  Come  and  eat  of  the  bread  and  drink  of  the  wine  which  I  have 
mixed  for  you."  Her  priests  are  constantly  in  her  confessionals 
and  on  her  altars.  The  burden  of  her  message  is,  "  Arise  and 
walk  as  children  of  the  light ;"  and  if  her  own  children  refuse  to 
hearken  to  the  voice  of  the  sanctifier,  they  are  as  far  from  salva- 
tion as  the  man  in  the  outer  darkness  who  refuses  the  light,  and 
they,  the  children  of  the  kingdom,  shall  behold  strangers  entering 
in  and  sitting  down  with  Abraham  and  Isaac  and  the  prophets, 
whilst  they  shall  be  cast  into  outer  darkness,  where  shall  be 
weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth.  Oh,  my  beloved,  to  you  I  say 
"  that  have  obtained  equal  faith  with  us  ...  .  employing 
all  care,  minister  in  your  faith  virtue,  and  in  virtue  knowledge, 
and  in  knowledge  abstinence,  and  in  abstinence  patience,  and  in 
patience  godliness,  and  in  godliness  love  of  brotherhood,  and  in 
love  of  brotherhood  charity.  For  if  these  things  be  with  you 
and  abound,  they  will  make  you  to  be  neither  empty  nor  un- 
fruitful in  the  knowledge  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 


MUSIC  IN    CATHOLIC   WORSHIP. 


[Sermon  preached   at  the  opening  of  an  organ  in  the  church  of  Our  Lady  thr 
Star  of  the  Sea,  Dublin,  on  Sunday,  September  4th,  1859.] 

l^jHE  Holy  Father  tells  us  that  the  good  Samaritan, 
P|L  mentioned  in  this  day's  Gospel,  is  a  figure  of  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Redeemer,  the  Restorer,  the  Comforter ;  and 
the  poor  wounded  man  whom  He  found  by  the  way- 
side signifies  our  human  nature,  which  He  came  to  heal,  and 
which  he  found  by  the  way-side  robbed  and  despoiled  of  its 
highest  gifts,  lying  prostrate  after  its  fall,  and  unable  to  rise, 
wounded  and  bleeding  from  the  effects  of  sin,  and  dying  the 
death  which  knew  no  hope  of  future  joy,  but  only  opened  upon 
eternal  sorrow.  And  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  bent  Him  down 
over  this  wounded  man,  and  approached  near  to  him,  when  He 
took  upon  Himself  our  nature.  He  examined  the  wounds  and 
bound  them  up,  pouring  in  wine  and  oil,  and  thus  giving  com- 
fort, and  infusing  new  life  and  strength  through  the  very  wounds 
themselves,  from  which  man's  life-blood  had  been-  flowing. 
He  touched  the  heart ;  He  restored  strength  and  animation  to 
the  soul ;  He  gave  back  life,  by  applying  Himself  to  the  body — 
nay,  more,  to  those  very  parts  of  the  body  which  were  most 
deeply  wounded.  Thus  the  wounds  which  before  were  the 
cause  of  death,  become  now  the  occasion  of  life;  they,  from 
which  the  heart's  blood  was  flowing  away,  are  now  made  the 
channels  through  which  the  life-restoring  wine  and  oil  are 
received ;  and  man  is  saved  by  means  of  the  very  wounds 
through  which  he  was  lost.  There  is  a  mystery  in  all  this.  It 
is  not  without  reason  that  the  holy  fathers  so  unanimously 
apply  to  our  blessed  Redeemer  the  parable  of  "  The  Good 
Samaritan."     They  saw  in  this  parable  a  faithful  representation 


Music  in  Catholic  WorsJiip.  345 

of  God's  dealing  with  man  in  the  great  work  of  redemption 
For,  my  brethren,  man  fell  from  God  by  means  of  his  senses  ; 
he  preferred  the  pleasures  of  sense  and  sensible  things  to  God's 
holy  law  ;  and  when  Almighty  God  punished  man  for  his  sin — 
depriving  him  of  original  grace  and  innocence — the  curse  fell 
largely  upon  those  very  senses  which  rebelled  against  reason, 
which  became  man's  greatest  obstacle  and  curse,  leading  him 
away  from  the  service,  and  even  the  knowledge  of  the  true  God, 
and  plunging  him  into  every  abyss  of  crime  and  error.  Man's 
sense  was  changed.  The  eye  of  unfallen  man  was  pure,  "  and 
they  were  both  naked,  to  wit,  Adam  and  his  wife,  and  were 
not  ashamed."  He  looked  upon  the  face  of  God  and  conversed 
with  Him.  The  ear  of  unfallen  man  rejoiced  at  hearing  the 
voice  of  God,  and  listened  with  rapture  to  the  harmonious  music 
of  the  angels  in  the  groves  of  Eden  ;  but  after  his  fall  he  said  to 
the  Lord,  "I  heard  thy  voice,  and  I  was  afraid."  And  in 
course  of  time,  still  led  away  by  the  senses,  "  they  changed  the 
glory  of  the  incorruptible  God  into  the  likeness  of  the  image 
of  corruptible  man,  and  of  birds,  and  of  fourfooted  beasts,  and 
of  creeping  things  ;"  and  this  because  "  God  had  delivered  them 
up  to  reprobate  sense."  Man's  senses,  then,  were  the  great  open 
wounds  through  which  his  soul  was  destroyed,  and  his  true  life 
taken  away.  But  when  the  Lord  Jesus  came — the  Good  Sama- 
ritan— He  poured  the  oil  and  wine  of  His  grace  into  man's 
soul  through  those  very  senses;  He  applied  Himself  to  the 
wounds  of  man  ;  and,  therefore,  faith,  which  is  the  root  of  justi- 
fication, comes  by  hearing ;  and  sacramental  grace,  by  which 
alone  we  can  be  saved,  is  infused  into  thv.  soul  by  the  external 
agency  of  sensible  things.  The  very  natuxe  of  man  requires 
this ;  for  such  is  the  intimate  moral  union  of  soul  and  body  in 
man,  that  it  is  impossible  to  reach  the  soul  save  through  the 
senses  of  the  body;  if  you  wish  to  influence  the  mind  of  man, 
and  touch  his  heart  either  for  good  or  evil,  you  must  appeal  to 
his  bodily  senses.  God  Himself  respects  His  own  divine  dispo 
sition  in  this  regard,  making  the  senses  the  ordinary  channels  of 
His  highest  graces  ;  and  the  Church  of  God — the  only  true  inter- 
preter of  His  will — whose  mission  it  is  to  raise  fallen  man  up  to 
God,  to  purify  and  to  preserve  his  soul,  and  to  make  him  perfect 
by  charity,  makes  use  of  everything  that  strikes  and  captivates 
the  senses,  in  order,  thereby,  to  reach  man's  soul,  to  touch  his 


346  Music  in  Catholic  Worship. 

heart,  and  to  offer  to  God  the  homage  of  the  entire  creature,  a< 
well  of  the  body  as  of  the  soul.  This  will  explain  to  us  why 
the  Catholic  Church  uses  so  much  of  external  grandeur  in  her 
ceremonies.  The  lights  and  ornaments  of  the  altar,  the  vest- 
ments of  the  priests,  the  smoke  of  incense,  the  pealing  notes  of 
the  organ,  the  lofty  dome,  the  graceful  arch,  the  pictures  and 
statues — all  these  things  are  intended  by  the  Church  as  means 
whereby  to  reach  the  hearts  and  souls  of  her  children,  by  in- 
structing, ennobling,  touching,  and  captivating  their  senses. 
Now,  the  mission  of  the  Church  in  this  world  is  to  win  man  to 
God ;  in  order  to  do  this  she  must  take  him  as  he  is,  and  treat 
him  according  to  his  nature,  leading  him  up  from  natural  things 
to  supernatural — from  sensible  things  to  spiritual — from  the 
things  that  are  made  to  the  invisible  things  of  God,  and  to  a 
knowledge  of  "  His  eternal  power  and  divinity."  She  must 
turn  to  God  all  the  powers  of  man's  soul,  all  the  affections  of 
his  heart  ;  and  therefore  she  seizes  upon  all  that  is  beautiful  in 
this  world,  and  makes  it  subservient  to  this  great  end.  Hence, 
the  fine  arts  have  always  found  their  most  generous  protection, 
as  they  found  their  highest  inspiration,  in  the  Catholic  Church. 
Painting  and  sculpture  were  exclusively  hers  until  the  heretical 
spirit  of  the  sixth  century  turned  them  to  the  sinful  service  of 
this  world,  and  then  they  fell,  nor  found  in  their  wretched 
imitations  of  Paganism  anything  that  could  make  up  to  them 
for  the  fair  Christianity  which  they  had  abandoned.  But  paint- 
ing and  sculpture,  after  all,  can  hardly  be  called  the  offspring  of 
the  Church,  though  she  consecrated,  refined,  and  exalted  them. 
They  flourished  in  ancient  times,  and  Greece  and  Rome  beheld 
them  in  all  their  glory.  But  there  is  another  of  the  fine  arts 
which  God  seems  to  have  consecrated  in  a  peculiar  manner  to 
the  services  of  the  sanctuary,  and  which  may  be  said  to  be 
especially  the  child  of  the  Church,  and  this  is  music.  Thus  we 
read,  that  when  King  David  brought  the  ark  of  God  into  the 
city  of  Sion,  "  he  spoke  to  the  chiefs  of  the  Levites  to  appoint 
some  of  their  brethren  to  be  singers,  with  musical  instruments 
— to  wit,  on  psalteries,  and  harps,  and  cymbals,  that  the  joyful 
noise  might  resound  on  high ;"  and,  again,  when  Solomon  con- 
secrated the  temple,  we  are  told  how  "  the  Levites,  with  their 
sons  and  their  brethren,  sounded  with  cymbals,  and  psalteries, 
and  harps,  and  with  them   one   hundred    and   twenty  priests 


Music  in  Catholic  Worship.  347 

sounding  with  trumpets  ;  so  when  they  all  sounded  together, 
both  with  trumpets,  and  voice,  and  cymbals,  and  organs,  and 
with  divers  kinds  of  musical  instruments,  and  lifted  up  their 
voice  on  high,  the  sound  was  heard  afar  off,  so  that  when  they 
began  to  praise  the  Lord,  and  to  say,  '  Give  glory  to  the  Lord, 
for  He  is  good,  for  His  mercy  endureth  for  ever;'  the  house  of 
God  was  filled  with  a  cloud."  And  so  for  succeeding  ages  the 
sound  of  cymbal  and  organ,  and  the  voice  of  the  singers,  was 
heard  in  the  great  temple  of  Jerusalem  ;  but  when  temple  and 
nation  were  alike  destroyed,  and  the  sorrowful  Jeremias  wept 
over  their  ruin,  this  was  the  burthen  of  his  song;  "The 
ancients  have  ceased  from  the  gates,  the  young  men  from  the 
choir  of  the  singers  ;  therefore  is  our  heart  sorrowful,  therefore 
are  our  eyes  become  dim."  And  when  the  Church,  the  great 
civilizer  of  the  world,  came  to  build  up  society,  and  to  restore 
civilization  upon  the  ruins  of  the  times  and  things  which  had 
passed  away,  she  found  amongst  the  relics  of  ancient  society 
masterpieces  of  painting,  sculpture,  and  architecture,  but  of 
their  music  they  had  left  us  nothing  save  a  dim  and  obscure 
tradition.  But  as  music  is  pre-eminently  the  science  of  the  soul, 
Christianity,  which  opened  to  man's  soul  its  proper  object, 
thereby  exalting  and  enlarging  the  soul,  soon  awoke  the  inspira- 
tion of  music,  and  in  the  dim  catacombs  strains  were  heard 
which  ravished  with  delight  even  Pagan  ears,  for,  whilst  organs 
pealed,  Cecilia's  angelic  voice  was  heard,  and  they  sang  to  the 
Lord  a  new  canticle,  and  His  praise  was  in  the  Church  of  the 
saints.  And  when  persecution  had  ceased,  and  the  Church  had 
come  forth  from  the  catacombs  to  spread  herself  over  the  earth, 
new  forms  of  beauty  appeared  in  all  the  arts,  and  Christian 
music  was  so  sweet  as  to  penetrate,  as  St.  Augustine  relates  of 
himself,  the  hearts,  and  move  the  souls  of  its  hearers.  But  a 
great  revolution  was  at  hand.  Millions  of  barbarians  swept 
down  from  the  North  of  Europe  and  Asia,  destroying  all  before 
them.  They  swept  away  the  last  vestiges  of  ancient  Paganism 
and  ancient  civilization,  and  there  was  only  one'  power  able  to 
resist  them,  and  finally  to  absorb  them  into  itself — and  that  was 
the  Christian  Church,  which  converted  and  civilized  them.  In 
those  days  of  ruin  and  calamity  the  arts  and  sciences,  as  well  as 
ancient  literature,  were  saved  by  the  Church  ;  they  took  lefuge 
in  her  bosom,  and  for  a  thousand  years  they  found  a  home  in 


348  Music  in  Catholic  Worship. 

her  cloisters.  Then  the  painter,  and  the  architect,  and  the 
musician,  as  well  as  the  profound  scholar  and  man  of  letters, 
were  all  centred  in  the  monk.  Then  did  Pope  St.  Gregory, 
himself  a  monk,  produce  those  plaintive,  yet  majestic  chants, 
which  bear  his  name  ;  then  did  the  loud  hosanna  roll  through 
the  long-drawn  aisles  which  the  architect  brothers  had  built,  and 
the  full  tide  of  sacred  song  swelled  through  those  wonderful 
mediaeval  churches  and  cloisters,  whose  very  ivied  ruins  still 
command  our  admiration,  and  move  us  to  tears.  And  there  the 
tired  Crusader,  exhausted  after  his  Eastern  wars,  would  refresh 
his  soul  with  holy  song,  and  at  the  midnight  hour  would  come 
the  proud,  fierce  baron  to  matins,  and  there  hearken  to  the 
tender  notes  of  the  organ,  so  skillfully  touched  by  the  Benedic- 
tine's hand,  till,  in  the  very  depths  of  his  soul,  he  would  be 
moved  to*  the  humility  of  Christian  sorrow  and  the  heroism  of 
Christian  forgiveness.  Thus  far,  music,  in  the  hands  of  the 
Church,  was  turned  to  its  highest  and  holiest  end  ;  but  when,  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  the  heretical  spirit  of  the  age  encroached 
upon  the  domain  of  the  Church,  this  noble  science  was  also  de- 
based, and  directed  to  other  and  inferior  purposes.  It  received 
many  great  developments,  it  is  true,  but  they  were  all  for  this 
world,  and  not  for  God.  The  cymbal  and  harp  were  no  longer 
used  only  to  kindle  in  men's  souls  high  and  holy  emotions ;  the 
sweetness  of  the  human  voice  sang  no  longer  exclusively  of  God  ; 
the  music  of  earth  ceased  to  be  the  echo  of  the  harmony  of 
heaven;  and  mere  pleasure  of  sense,  and  the  kindling  of  human 
passion  and  bad  desire,  and  the  celebration  of  worldly  great- 
ness, and  often  the  representation  of  sin  and  shame,  has  become 
the  end  and  aim  of  this  noble  and  heaven-born  art.  All  the 
power  of  music  has  remained,  but  it  has  become  worldly,  and, 
therefore,  is  penetrated  with  the  curse  wherewith  the  world  was 
cursed.  It  is,  at  the  present  day,  one  of  the  most  powerful  in- 
struments in  the  hands  of  the  devil  to  lead  souls  into  the  dis- 
sipation and  vanity  of  this  wicked  world.  But,  amid  all  this 
evil,  there  is  one  musical  instrument  which  remained  faithful  to 
its  grand  calling,  nor  lent  itself  to  the  frivolities,  and  that, 
indeed,  the  prince  of  musical  instruments  of  modern  times — and 
this  is  the  organ.  Of  all  other  instruments  the  organ  was  (if  I 
may  use  the  phrase)  born  in  the  Church,  and  for  Church  pur- 
poses ;  and  from  its  very  formation,  and  the  solemnity  of  its 


Music  in  Catholic  Worship.  349 

beauty,  the  world  has  not  been  able  to  tear  it  from  the  sanctuary. 
It  disdains  to  lend  itself  to  the  world's  light-polish  purposes;  its 
voice  is  not  heard  in  the  gilded  theatre  or  bright  saloon  ;  but 
its  grand,  inspiring  notes  mingle  now,  as  of  old,  with  the  prayer 
and  the  sacrifice,  and  are  borne  up  toward  heaven  with  the 
smoke  of  incense  and  the  aspirations  of  religious  love.  And  as 
music,  more  than  any  other  sensible  thing,  touches  the  heart, 
and  inspires  and  raises  up  the  soul,  the  organ  is  a  most  necessary 
and  indispensable  appendage  to  the  Catholic  Church.  For  the 
great  object  of  Catholic  worship  is  to  absorb  the  entire  man, 
body  and  soul,  mind  and  affections,  and  to  bring  him  into  the 
presence  of  God.  Jesus  Christ  is  really  and  corporally  present, 
and  therefore  we  prostrate  not  only  our  minds  but  also  our 
bodies  before  Him.  Then  the  great  organ,  so  varied,  yet  so 
harmonious,  is  symbolical  of  the  mystic  body  of  Christ,  i.  e.,  the 
faithful.  The  organ  is  made  up  of  a  multitude  of  different  notes, 
of  pipes  and  of  stops — each  varying  one  with  another,  yet  all 
blending  into  one  sweet  and  solemn  harmony ;  and  so  the 
Catholic  congregation  is  made  up  of  a  multitude  of  Christians, 
differing  each  from  the  other  in  thoughts,  in  tastes,  in  condition 
of  life ;  in  their  views  and  worldly  aspirations ;  in  age,  in  man- 
ner ;  yet  from  all  these  varied  elements  there  arises  one  solemn 
act  of  worship,  as  they  blend  together  in  the  union  of  faith,  and 
in  the  unanimous  voice  of  praise.  They  enter  the  church,  bring- 
ing their  worldly  cares  and  distractions  with  them  ;  the  young,  fill- 
ed with  thoughts  of  the  vanities  with  which  they  are  surrounded, 
and  which  appear  to  them  so  true  and  pleasing ;  the  old,  groaning 
under  their  infirmities,  and  absorbed  in  themselves  ;  the  rich,  with 
thoughts  perhaps  of  ambition,  or  how  they  may  acquire  still  more ; 
the  poor,  with  discontented  hearts  and  impatient  reflections  on 
their  daily  wants  ;  and  so  they  kneel  before  the  altar.  And  now 
music  is  heard,  and  the  soft  high  notes  of  the  organ  float  in  the 
:  air  like  the  breathing  of  angels,  and  steal  into  the  distracted 
ears  and  hearts  of  those  around,  powerfully,  yet  almost  insen- 
sibly, gathering  in  their  wandering  thoughts ;  and  the  music 
swells,  and  increasing  in  its  strength,  filling  the  holy  house  until 
the  very  air  trembles,  and  men's  hearts  beat  quicker,  and  heads 
are  bent  down,  and  tears  flow,  and  hearts  and  souls  are  moved  ; 
and  cares,  and  distractions,  and  misery,  and  self  are  forgotten  ; 
and  the  glorious  organ  has  done  its  work  well,  for  now  all  are 


350  Music  in  Catholic  Worship. 

absorbed  in  the  presence  of  the  living  God  I  have  not  in  this 
exaggerated  the  power  of  instrumental  music  as  a  means  for 
moving  the  soul  and  bringing  it  into  the  presence  of  God.  For, 
my  dearly-beloved  brethren,  there  is  a  strange  and  powerful 
connection  between  the  human  soul  and  music.  As  the  soul  is 
a  spirit,  and  music,  of  all  the  beauties  or  pleasures  of  sense,  ap- 
proaches nearest  to  the  conditions  of  pure  spirit,  it  may  be  said 
to  be  the  language  of  the  soul ;  it  is  soonest  and  most  understood 
by  the  soul ;  it  calms  the  troubled  soul — soothing  its  peace  and 
enhancing  its  joy.  Thus  we  find  that  when  Saul,  the  King 
of  Israel,  was  troubled  by  the  evil  spirit,  "  David  took  his  harp 
and  played  with  his  hand,  and  Saul  was  refreshed,  and  was 
better,  for  the  evil  spirit  departed  from  him."  St.  Hildegarde, 
whose  prophecies  and  visions  are  approved  of  by  the  Church, 
speaking  of  the  human  soul,  says,  "  the  soul  is  a  harmony." 
And  surely  the  soul  of  man,  as  it  came  first  from  the  hands  of 
God,  resembles  a  beautiful  musical  instrument  upon  which  God 
Himself  breathed,  that  it  might  return  to  Him  here  a  continual 
hymn  of  praise,  until  its  voice  should  be  united  in  heaven  to 
that  of  the  angels  ;  for  the  Scriptures  and  the  holy  fathers  love  to 
describe  the  kingdom  of  heaven  as  the  mansion  of  everlasting 
harmony  and  song  of  joy;  where  the  souls  of  the  virgins  "  sing 
a  new  canticle  to  the  Lamb  ;"  where  the  souls  of  the  just,  made 
perfect,  ever  sing,  "  Holy,  holy,  holy,  to  the  Lord  God  of  Sab- 
aoth  ;"  and  where,  from  the  throne  of  God,  proceed  ravishing 
seunds,  and  the  very  atmosphere  is  music.  "  I  saw,"  says  St. 
Hildegarde,  in  the  vision  which  she  calls  "  the  Symphony  of 
the  Virgin  Mary,"  "  I  saw  a  very  pure  atmosphere,  in  which  I 
heard  a  ravishing  harmony  of  musical  sounds  ;  harmonies  of  joy 
from  on  high,  concords  of  different  voices,  concerts  of  souls 
which  are  vigorously  persevering  in  the  love  of  truth."  When 
St.  Mary  Magdalen  had  retired  into  the  desert,  she  heard  every 
day,  for  forty  years,  the  angelic  voices  pouring  out  the  richness 
of  their  harmony  in  hymns  to  God.  And  when  the  most  glorious 
soul  of  the  Queen  of  Heaven  had  quitted  this  earth,  the  Apostles 
who  watched  at  her  grave  heard,  for  three  days  and  three  nights, 
the  voice  of  the  angelic  host,  and  when  the  music  had  ceased 
they  opened  the  tomb,  but  the  virgin  body  was  not  there,  it 
was  already  seated  upon  the  highest  throne  in  heaven  after 
God's,  whither  the  immaculate  one  was  borne,  amidst  trium- 


Music  in  Catholic  WorsJiip.  331 

phant  songs  of  the  nine  choirs  of  angels.  And  "  The  morning 
stars  praised  the  Lord  together,  and  all  the  sons  of  God  made 
a  joyful  melody."  We  gather  from  Scripture  that  the  angels 
express  their  joy  in  song.  "And  when  He  had  opened  the 
book,  the  four  living  creatures,  and  the  four-and-twenty  ancients 
fell  down  before  the  Lamb,  and  they  sung  a  new  canticle ;  and 
I  beheld,  and  I  heard  the  voice  of  many  angels  round  about  the 
throne."  And  again,  when  at  the  birth  of  Christ  the  angel 
announced  tidings  of  great  joy,  there  was  heard  a  multitude  of 
the  angelic  host,  and  they  sang,  "Glory  be  to  God  on  high." 
Music,  then,  is  the  expression  of  angelic  joy.  But  if  there  be 
the  melody  of  joy  amongst  the  angels  in  heaven  for  one  sinner 
doing  penance,  and  entering  into  the  kingdom  of  God,  what 
must  have  been  the  song  when  the  Refuge  of  Sinners — when 
she,  through  whom  all  sinners  are  saved,  entered  therein.  If 
for  the  least  of  Christ's  little  ones  hymns  of  glory  are  sung,  and 
heaven  resounds  with  praise,  what  must  have  been  the  melody 
when  the  Queen  of  Angels — the  first,  the  highest,  the  purest, 
the  holiest  of  all  creatures,  was  assumed,  body  and  soul,  into 
eternal  bliss,  and  heaven  first  beheld  her  glory  who  was  to  be 
its  Queen  for  ever.  Mary  quitted  this  earth  for  God  ;  Mary 
took  her  departure,  accompanied  by  angels,  who  filled  the  air 
with  music ;  and  as  she  passed  the  angel  of  every  bright  star  in 
the  firmament  and  the  angels  of  the  sun  and  moon  paid  her 
homage,  rejoiced,  and  gave  glory  to  God,  and  swelled  the  tide 
of  heavenly  song,  "  and  the  morning  stars  praised  the  Lord  to- 
gether, and  all  the  sons  of  God  made  a  joyful  melody,"  until 
the  vaults  of  heaven  rang  again  with  their  shouting,  as  the 
Mother  of  Jesus  met  her  Son,  never,  never  again  to  be  parted 
from  Him.  The  Apostles  caught  but  a  faint  echo  of  the  heav- 
enly music,  yet  their  souls  were  ravished  with  joy.  O  Mary,  re- 
splendent pearl,  the  pure  light  of  heaven  is  poured  into  thee, 
We  come  to-day  in  thine  own  house  to  offer  thee  the  tribute  of 
our  praise,  and  the  instrument  which  will  never  sound,  but  for 
thy  Son  and  for  thee.  Bless  us,  O  most  pure  and  brilliant 
Queen,  and  bless  this  our  offering.  May  its  music  be  to  us  as 
the  voice  of  the  angels  who  bore  thee  to  heaven ;  ever  raising 
our  thoughts  to  thee,  O  Star  of  our  pilgrimage,  and  to  the 
glories  of  thy  Eternal  Son,  to  whom  be  honor,  praise,  and  gloiy 
for  ever  and  ever. 


CATHOLIC  EDUCATION. 


[Lecture  delivered  in    St.  Peter's  Church,  Barclay  Street,  New  York,  on  Thursday 
evening,  May  23d,  1872.] 

PROPOSE  to  speak  to  you,  my  dear  friends,  this 
evening,  on  the  question  of.  "  Catholic  Education." 
My  attention  was  attracted  this  morning  to  a  notice 
in  one  of  the  leading  papers  of  this  city,  in  which  the 
writer  warned  me,  that  if  I  was  not  able  to  find  a  solution  for 
this  difficult  question  of  education,  which  would  be  acceptable 
to  all  classes,  I  might  please  my  co-religionists,  but  that  I  could 
not  please  the  public.  Whilst  I  am  grateful  to  the  writer  of  that 
article,  or  to  any  one  else  that  gives  me  advice,  I  have  to  tell 
you,  my  friends,  and  the  writer  of  that  notice,  and  everybody 
else,  that  I  am  not  come  to  this  country,  nor  have  I  put  on  this 
habit,  to  please  either  the  public  or  my  co-religionists,  but  to 
announce  the  truth  of  God,  in  the  name  of  His  holy  Church. 
He  who  accepts  it,  and  believes  it,  and  acts  upon  it,  shall  be 
saved :  he  that  does  not  choose  to  believe,  Christ,  our  Lord, 
Himself  says,  shall  be  condemned.  God  help  us  !  God  pity  the 
people  whose  religious  teachers  have  to  try  and  please  their  co- 
religionists and  the  public  !  Great  Lord  !  how  terrible  it  is  when 
the  spirit  of  farce  and  of  unreality  finds  its  way,  even  into  the 
mind  of  the  man  who  is  to  proclaim  the  truth  by  which  alone 
his  fellow-men  and  himself  can  be  saved.  But  it  was  remarked, 
and  truly,  in  the  same  article,  that  "  this  is  one  of  the  most — 
perhaps,  the  most — important  questions  of  the  day."  No  doubt 
it  is.  I  don't  suppose  I  could  have  a  more  important  theme  for 
the  subject  of  my  thoughts,  or  of  my  words,  than  that  of  educa- 
tion. This  is  a  question  that  comes  home  to  every  man  amongst 
us.     No  man  can  close  his  mind  against  it.     No  man  can  shut. 


Catholic  Education. 


353 


it  out  from  his  thoughts.  No  man  in  the  community  can  fold 
his  arms  and  say,  "  This  is  a  question  which  does  not  concern 
me,  consequently,  upon  which  I  am  indifferent."  No  :  and 
why?  Because  every  man  amongst  us  is  obliged  to  live  in 
society  ;  that  is  to  say,  in  inter-communion  with  his  fellow-men. 
Every  man's  happiness  or  misery  depends,  in  a  large  degree, 
upon  the  state  of  society  in  which  he  lives.  If  the  associations 
that  surround  us  are  good,  and  holy,  and  pure;  if  our  children 
are  obedient,  if  our  servants  are  honest,  if  our  friends  are  loyal, 
and  our  neighbors  are  peaceable,  if  the  persons  who  supply  us 
with  the  necessaries  of  life  are  reliable — how  far  all  these  things 
go  to  smooth  away  all  the  difficulties,  and  annoyances,  and 
anxieties  of  life  !  And  yet,  all  this  depends  mostly  upon  educa- 
tion. If,  on  the  other  hand,  our  children  are  rude,  disobedient,  and 
willful ;  if  those  around  us  be  dishonest,  so  that  we  must  be  con- 
stantly on  our  guard  against  them  ;  if  our  friends  be  false,  so 
that  we  know  not  upon  whose,  word  to  rely ;  if  everything  we 
use  and  take  to  clothe  ourselves  be  bad,  and  adulterated,  or 
poisonous — how  miserable  all  this  makes  life !  And  yet,  these 
issues,  I  say  again,  depend  mainly  upon  education.  Therefore, 
it  is  a  question  that  comes  home  to  every  man,  and  from  which 
no  man  can  excuse  himself,  or  plead  indifference  or  unconcern. 

Now,  first  of  all,  my  friends,  consider  that  the  greatest  mis- 
fortune that  Almighty  God  can  let  fall  upon  any  man  is  the 
curse  of  utter  ignorance,  or  want  of  education.  The  Holy  Ghost, 
in  the  Scriptures,  expressly  tells  us  that  this  absence  of  knowl- 
edge, this  absence  of  instruction  and  education,  is  the  greatest 
curse  that  can  fall  upon  a  man ;  because  it  not  only  unfits  him 
for  his  duties  to  God,  and  for  the  fellowship  of  the  elect  of  God, 
and  for  every  Godlike  and  eternal  purpose,  but  it  also  unfits 
him  for  the  society  of  his  human  kind;  and  therefore,  the  Scrip- 
ture says  so  emphatically — "  Man,  when  he  was  in  honor  "  (that 
is  to  say,  created  in  honor,)  "lost  his  knowledge."  He  had  no 
knowledge.  What  followed?  He  was  compared  to  senseless 
beasts  and  made  like  to  them.  What  is  it  that  distinguishes 
man  from  the  brute?  Is  it  the  strength  of  limb?  No!  Is  it 
gracefulness  of  form  ?  No  !  Is  it  acute  sensations — a  sense  of 
ruperior  sight,  or  a  more  intense  and  acute  sense  of  hearing? 
No !  In  all  these  things  many  of  the  beasts  that  roam  the  forest 
exceed  us.  We  have  not  the  swiftness  of  the  stag ;  we  have 
23 


354  Catholic  Education. 

not  the  strength  of  the  lion  we  have  not  the  beautiful  grace  of 
the  antelope  of  the  desert ;  we  have  not  the  power  to  soar  into 
the  upper  air,  like  the  eagle,  who  lifts  himself  upon  strong  pin- 
ions and  gazes  on  the  sun.  We  have  not  the  keen  sense  of 
sight  of  many  animals,  nor  the  keen  sense  of  hearing  of  others 
In  what,  then,  lies  the  difference  and  the  superiority  of  man  ? 
Oh,  my  dear  friends,  it  lies  in  the  intelligence,  that  can  know, 
and  the  heart,  which,  guided  by  that  intelligence,  is  influenced 
to  love  for  intellectual  motives,  and  in  the  will,  which  is  sup- 
posed to  preserve  its  freedom  by  acting  under  the  dominion  ot 
that  enlightened  intellect  and  mind.  For,  mark  you,  it  is  not 
the  mere  power  of  knowing  that  distinguishes  man  from  the 
brutes,  and  brings  him  to  the  perfection  of  his  nature.  It  is  the 
actual  presence  of  knowledge.  It  is  not  the  mere  power  of  lov- 
ing that  distinguishes  man  from  the  lower  creatures.  No.  For 
if  that  love  be  excited  by  mere  sensuality,  by  the  mere  appeal 
to  the  senses,  it  is  not  the  high  human  love  of  man,  but  it  is  the 
mere  lust  of  desire  and  passion  of  the  brute.  It  is  not  the  will 
that  distinguishes  man  in  the  nobility  of  his  nature  from  the 
brute ;  but  it  is  the  will,  preserving  its  freedom,  keeping  itself 
free  from  the  slavery  and  dominion  of  brute  passions,  and 
answering  quickly — heroically — to  eveiy  dictate  of  the  high  and 
holy  and  enlightened  intelligence  that  is  in  man.  What  follows 
from  this  ?  It  follows  that  if  you  deprive  him  of  intelligence  or 
knowledge,  if  you  leave  him  in  utter  ignorance  and  withdraw 
education,  you  thereby  starve,  and,  as  far  as  you  can,  annihilate 
the  very  highest  portion  of  the  soul  of  man;  you  thereby  dwarf 
all  his  spiritual  powers  ;  you  thereby  leave  that  soul,  which  was 
created  to  grow,  and  to  wax  strong,  and  to  be  developed  by 
knowledge — you  leave  it  in  the  imbecility  and  the  helplessness 
of  its  natural,  intellectual,  and  spiritual  infancy.  What  follows 
from  this?  It  follows  that  the  uneducated,  uninstructed,  igno- 
rant, dwarfed  individual  is  incapable  of  influencing  the  affections 
of  the  heart  with  any  of  the  higher  motives  of  love.  It  follows 
that  if  that  heart  of  man  is  ever  to  love  it  will  not  love  upon  the 
dictate  of  the  intelligence,  guiding  it  to  an  intellectual  object 
but,  like  the  brute  beast  of  the  field,  it  will  seek  the  gratification 
of  all  its  desires  upon  the  mere  brutal,  corporeal  evidence  of  its 
senses.  What  follows  moreover?  It  follows  that  the  will  which 
was  created  by  the  Almighty  God  in  freedom,  and  which,  by  the 


Catholic  Education.  355 

very  composition  of  man's  nature,  was  destined  to  exercise  that 
freedom  under  the  dictate  of  intelligence,  is  now  left  without  its 
proper  ruler,  an  intelligent,  instructed  intellect  ;  and,  therefore, 
in  the  uninstructed  man  the  allegiance  of  the  will — and  its 
dominion — is  transferred  to  the  passions,  desires,  depraved  in- 
clinations of  man's  lower  nature.  And  so  we  see  that  in  the 
purely  and  utterly  uninstructed  man  there  can  be  no  loftiness 
of  thought,  no  real  purity  of  affection,  nor  can  there  be  any 
real  intellectual  action  of  the  will  of  man.  Therefore,  I  con- 
clude that  the  greatest  curse  Almighty  God  can  let  fall  upon  a 
man  is  the  curse  of  utter  ignorance,  unfitting  him  thereby  for 
every  purpose  of  God  and  every  purpose  of  society. 

First,  then,  my  dear  friends,  I  assert  that  want  of  education, 
or  ignorance,  unfits  a  man  for  his  position,  no  matter  how 
humble  it  be,  in  this  world  and  in  society.  For  all  human 
society  exists  amongst  men,  and  not  amongst  inferior  animals, 
because  of  the  existence  in  men  of  intelligence.  All  human 
society  or  intercourse  is  based  upon  intellectual  communication, 
thought  meeting  thought  ;  intellectual  sympathy  corresponding 
with  the  sympathy  of  others.  But  the  man  who  is  utterly  un 
instructed  ;  the  man  who  has  never  been  taught  to  write  or  to 
read ;  the  man  who  has  never  been  taught  to  exercise  any  act 
of  his  intelligence  ;  the  poor,  neglected  child  that  we  see  about  our 
streets — growing  up  without  receiving  any  word  of  instruction 
— grows  up,  rises  to  manhood,  utterly  unfit  to  communicate  with 
his  fellow-men,  for  he  is  utterly  unprepared  for  that  intercom- 
munion of  intelligence  and  intellect  which  is  the  function  of 
society.  What  follows?  He  cannot  be  an  obedient  citizen, 
because  he  cannot  even  apprehend  in  his  mind  the  idea  of  law. 
He  cannot  be  a  prosperous  citizen,  because  he  can  never  turn 
to  any  kind  of  labor  which  would  require  the  slightest  mental 
effort.  In  other  words,  he  cannot  labor  as  a  man.  He  is  con- 
demned by  his  intellectual  imbecility  to  labor  merely  with  his 
hands.  Mere  brute  force  distinguishes  his  labor ;  and  the 
moment  you  reduce  a  man  to  the  degree  and  amount  of  mere 
corporeal  strength,  the  moment  you  remove  from  his  labor 
the  application  of  intellect,  that  moment  he  is  put  in  competi- 
tion with  the  beasts;  and  they  are  stronger  than  he;  therefore 
he  is  inferior  to  them.  Take  the  utterly  uninstructed  man  ;  he 
it  is  that  is  the  enemy  of  society.     He  cannot  meet  his  fellow 


$$6  Catholic  Education. 

men  in  any  kind  of  intellectual  intercommunion.  He  is  shut 
out  from  all  that  the  past  tells  him  in  the  history  of  the  world ; 
from  all  the  high  present  interests  that  are  pressing  around  him  • 
from  all  his  future  he  is  shut  out  by  his  uttei  destitution  of  all 
religious  education  as  well  as  civil.  What  follows  from  this  ? 
Isolated  as  he  is — flung  back  upon  his  solitary  self — no  human- 
izing touch;  no  gentle  impulse;  no  softening  remembrance  even 
of  sorrow  or  trouble;  no  aspiration  for  something  better  than 
the  present  moment ;  no  remorse  for  sin  ;  no  consolation  in 
pain  ;  no  relief  in  affliction  ;  nothing  of  all  this  remains  to  him  : 
an  isolated,  solitary  man,  such  as  you  or  I  might  be,  if  in  one 
moment,  by  God's  visitation,  all  that  we  have  ever  learned 
should  be  wiped  out  of  our  minds ;  all  our  past  lost  to  us  ;  all 
the  hopes  of  the  future  cut  off  from  us  ;  such  is  the  ignorant 
man  ;  and  such  society  recognizes  him  to  be.  If  there  be  a  man 
who  .makes  the  State,  and  the  Government  of  the  State,  to 
tremble,  it  is  the  thoroughly  uninstructed  and  uneducated  man  ; 
it  is  the  class  neglected  in  early  youth,  and  cast  aside  ;  and  utter- 
ly uninstructed  and  undeveloped  in  their  souls,  in  their  hearts, 
and  in  their  intellects.  It  is  this  class  that,  from  time  to  time, 
comes  to  the  surface,  in  some  wild  revolution,  swarming  forth 
in  the  streets  of  London,  or  the  streets  of  Paris,  or  in  the 
streets  of  the  great  continental  cities  of  Europe  ;  swarming 
forth,  no  one  knows  from  whence ;  coming  forth  from  their 
cellars  ;  coming  forth  from  out  the  dark  places  of  the  city  ;  with 
fury  unreasoning  in  their  eyes,  and  the  cries  of  demons  upon 
their  lips.  These  are  the  men  that  have  dyed  their  hands  red 
jn  the  best  blood  of  Europe,  whether  it  came  from  the  throne  or 
the  altar.  It  is  the  thoroughly  uninstructed,  uneducated, 
neglected  child  of  society  that  rises  in  God's  vengeance  against 
the  world  and  the  society  that  neglected  him,  and  pays  them 
back  with  bitter  interest  for  the  neglect  of  his  soul  in  his  early 
youth.  Therefore  it  is,  that  statesmen  and  philosophers  cry  out, 
in  this  our  day,  "  We  must  educate  the  people."  And  the  great 
cry  is,  Education.     Quite  true,  and  right ! 

And  if  the  world  demands  education,  much  more  does  the 
Catholic  Church.  She  is  the  true  mother,  not  merely  of  the 
masses,  as  they  are  called,  but  of  each  and  every  individual  soul 
amongst  them.  She  it  is  to  whose  hands  God  has  committee 
the  eternal  interests  of  man,  and,  therefore,  it  is  with  a  zeal  fai 


Catholic  Education. 


357 


gi  eater  than  that  of  the  world  the  Catholic  Church  applies  her- 
self to  the  subject  and  question  of  education.  Why  so  ?  Because 
if,  as  we  have  seen,  all  human  society  is  based  upon  knowledge, 
#upon  intercommunion  of  intellect — of  which  the  uninstructcd 
man  is  incapable — the  society  which  is  called  the  Church — the 
supernatural  and  divine  society — is  also  much  more  emphatically 
founded  upon  the  principles  of  knowledge.  What  is  the  founda- 
tion, the  bond,  the  link,  the  life  and  soul  of  the  Catholic 
Church?  I  answer — faith.  Faith  in  God.  Faith  in  every 
word  that  God  has  revealed.  Faith,  stronger  than  any  human 
principle  of  belief,  opinion,  or  conviction.  Faith,  not  only  bow- 
ing down  before  God,  but  apprehending  what  God  speaks ; 
clasping  that  truth  to  the  mind,  and  informing  the  intelligence 
with  its  light ;  admitting  it  as  a  moral  influence  into  every 
action  and  every  motive  of  a  man's  life.  It  is  the  soul  and  life 
of  the  Catholic  Church.  Faith  !  What  is  faith  ?  It  is  an  act 
of  the  intelligence,  whereby  we  know  and  believe  all  that  God 
has  revealed.  Faith,  then,  is  knowledge  ?  Most  certainly  !  Is 
it  an  act  of  the  will?  No;  not  directly — not  essentially — not 
immediately.  It  is,  directly,  essentially,  and  immediately,  an  act 
of  the  intellect,  and  not  of  the  will.  It  is  the  intellect  .that  is 
the  subject  wherein  faith  resides.  The  will  may  command  that 
intellect  to  bow  down  and  believe  ;  -but  the  essential  act  of  faith 
is  an  act  of  the  intelligence,  receiving  light  and  accepting  it — and 
that  light  is  knowledge ;  therefore,  the  Catholic  Church  cannot 
exist  without  knowledge. 

More  than  this,  the  world  has  many  duties  which  it  imposes 
upon  man,  which  require  no  education,  little  or  nothing  of  in- 
struction ;  for  instance,  the  duty  of  labor,  where  one  man,  edu- 
cated and  instructed,  taking  his  position  at  the  head  of  the 
works  or  the  engineering,  is  able  to  direct  ten  thousand  men  ; 
there,  amongst  these  ten  thousand,  no  great  amount  of  instruc- 
tion or  education  is  necessary  or  required ;  but  the  Catholic 
Church,  on  the  other  hand,  imposes  a  great  many  tasks  upon 
her  children,  every  one  of  them  requiring  not  only  intellect  but 
highly-trained  and  well-educated  intellect.  Look  through  the 
duties  that  the  Church  imposes  upon  us.  Every  one  of  these 
duties  is  intellectual.  The  Church  commands  us  to  pray. 
Prayer  involves  a  knowledge  of  God,  a  knowledge  of  our  own 
wants,  and  a  knowledge  how  to  elevate  our  souls  to  God  ;  for 


358  Catholic  Education. 

prayer  is  the  elevation  of  the  soul ;  and  the  uninstructed  soul 
cannot  elevate  itself  to  the  apprehension  of  a  pure  spiritual 
being.  The  Church  commands  us  to  prepare  for  confession. 
That  involves  a  knowledge  of  the  law  of  God,  in  order  that  we 
may  examine  ourselves,  and  see  wherein  we  have  failed ;  that 
involves  a  knowledge  of  ourselves,  in  order  to  study  ourselves, 
that  we  may  discover  our  sins.  Preparation  for  confession  in- 
volves a  knowledge  of  God's  claim  to  our  love,  in  order  that  we 
may  find  motives  for  our  sorrow.  The  Church  commands  us  to 
approach  the  Holy  Communion.  That  approach  involves  the 
high  intellectual  act  whereby  we  are  able  with  heart  and  with 
mind  to  realize  the  unseen,  invisible,  yet  present  God,  and  to 
receive  Him.  We  see  the  strong  act  of  the  intellect  realizing 
the  unseen,  and  transcending  the  evidence  of  the  senses,  so  as 
to  make  that  unseen,  invisible  presence  act  upon  us  more 
strongly — agitate  us  more  violently — than  the  strongest  emotion 
that  the  evidence  of  the  senses  can  give. 

The  Church  commands  us  to  understand  what  her  sacraments 
are ;  and  that  is  a  high  intellectual  act,  whereby  we  recognize 
God's  dealings  with  man  through  the  agency  of  material  things. 
In  a  word,  every  single  duty  the  Catholic  Church  imposes  is  of 
the  highest  intellectual  character. 

Again  :  though  the  world  demands  knowledge  and  education 
as  the  very  first  element  in  its  society,  still  the  motive  power 
that  the  world  proposes  to  every  man  is  self-interest ;  the  appeal 
that  the  world  makes,  through  the  thousand  channels  through 
which  it  comes  to  us,  is  all  an  appeal  to  self.  All  the  professions, 
all  the  mercantile  operations,  all  the  duties  and  pleasures  of  life, 
all  appeal  to  the  individual  to  seek  his  own  self-aggrandizement 
— his  own  self-indulgence — to  make  life  happy  and  pleasant  to 
himself.  Not  so  with  the  Church  ;  her  foundation  is  faith ;  and 
the  motive  she  puts  before  every  man  is  not  self,  but  charity. 
Just  as  self  concentrates  the  heart  of  man,  narrows  his  intellect- 
ual and  spiritual  horizon,  makes  him  turn  in  upon  his  own  con- 
tracted being,  and  so  narrows  every  intellectual  and  spiritual, 
power  within  him ;  charity,  on  the  other  hand,  which  is  the 
motive  propounded  by  the  Church,  enlarges  and  expands  the 
heart  of  man,  enlarges  the  horizon  of  his  intellectual  view,  and 
lifts  him  up  above  himself.  Like  a  man  climbing  the  mountain- 
side, every  foot  that  he  ascends  he  sees  the  horizon  enlarging 


Catholic  Education.  359 

and  widening  around  him.  So,  also,  every  Catholic,  the  more 
he  enters  into  the  spirit  of  his  holy  religion,  the  more  docs  he 
perceive  the  intellectual,  moral,  and  spiritual  horizon  enlarging — 
taking  in  more  interests  and  manifesting  more  beauties  of  a 
spiritual  order.  So  it  is  with  the  Church  of  God.  She  depends 
more  upon  education  than  even  the  world,  both  from  the  funda- 
mental principle  of  faith,  which  is  an  act  of  the  intellect,  and  the 
motive  of  action,  which  is  charity,  which  is  an  expansion  of  the 
intellect,  and  also  from  the  nature  of  the  duties  which  she  im- 
poses upon  her  children,  and  which  are  all  of  the  highest  intel- 
lectual character. 

And  yet,  my  friends,  strange  to  say,  amongst  the  many  oddi- 
ties of  this  age  of  ours,  there  is  a  singular  delusion  which  has 
taken  hold  of  the  Protestant  mind,  that  the  Catholic  Church  is 
opposed  to  education  ;  that  she  is  anxious  to  keep  the  people 
ignorant ;  that  she  is  afraid  to  let  them  read ;  that  she  does  not 
like  to  see  schools  opened,  and  that  she'  is  afraid  of  enlighten- 
ment. They  argue  so  blindly  and  yet  so  complacently  that 
when  you  find*  a  good-natured  and  good-humored  Protestant 
man  or  woman  calmly  talking  about  these  things,  it  is  difficult 
to  keep  from  laughing  ;  it  is  easy  enough  to  keep  your  temper 
but  very  hard  to  keep  from  laughing.  For  instance,  talking 
about  Spain  or  Mexico ;  calmly  and  complacently  telling  how 
the  whole  country  is  to  become  Protestant  as  soon  as  the  whole 
people  "  learn  how  to  read,  you  know  !  "  and  "  begin  to  reason, 
you  know  !  "  "  If  we  can  only  get  good  schools  amongst  them." 
Then  they  believe  the  infernal  lies  told  them ;  for  instance,  the 
lie  is  told  that,  in  Rome,  since  Victor  Emanuel  entered  it,  thirty- 
six  schools  had  been  opened — taking  it  for  granted  there  were 
no  schools  there  before !  I  lived  twelve  years  in  Rome,  under 
the  Pope,  and  there  was  a  school  almost  in  every  street ;  not  a 
child  in  Rome  was  uneducated  ;  nay,  more — the  Christian  broth- 
ers and  the  nuns  went  out  in  the  streets  of  Rome  regularly, 
every  morning,  and  went  from  house  to  house,  and  up-stairs  in 
the  tenement  houses,  amongst  the  poor  people,  picking  up  the 
children  ;  or  if  they  found  a  little  boy  running  about  in  the 
streets  he  was  taken  quietly  to  school.  They  went  out  regularly 
to  pick  up  the  children  out  of  the  streets  ;  and  yet  these  men 
who  are  interested  in  blinding  the  foolish  Protestant  mind,  come 
with  such  language  as  this- -for  it  is  the  popular  idea,  which 


500  Catholic  Education. 

they  wish  to  perpetuate,  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  afraid  of 
education.  No,  my  friends,  the  Catholic  Church  is  afraid  of  one 
man  more  than  any  other,  and  that  is  the  ignorant  man.  The 
man  who  brings  disgrace  upon  his  religion  is  the  thoroughly 
ignorant  man,  if  he  is  a  professed  Catholic  ;  and  the  man  im- 
possible to  make  a  Catholic  of  is  the  thoroughly  ignorant  Prot- 
estant. The  more  ignorant  he  is  the  less  chance  there  is  of 
making  a  Catholic  of  him.  The  truth  is,  in  this  day  of  ours  the 
great  conversions  made  to  the  Catholic  Church  in  this  country 
and  Europe,  from  Protestantism,  all  take  place  amongst  the  most 
enlightened  and  highly-educated  and  cultivated  people.  Why? 
Because  the  more  the  Protestant  reads,  and  the  more  he  knows 
— the  "nearer  he  approaches  to  the  Catholic  Church,  the  true 
fountain-head  and  source  of  education.  Why  is  this  accusation 
brought  against  the  Catholic  Church  that  she  is  afraid  of  this 
and  afraid  of  that?  I  will  tell  you  why.  Because  she  insists,  in 
the  teeth  of  the  world,  and  in  spite  of  the  world's  pride  and 
ignorance  and  bloated  self-sufficiency — the  Catholic  Church 
insists,  as  she  has  insisted  for  eighteen  hundred  and  seventy-two 
years,  on  saying,  "  I  know  how  to  teach ;  you  don't ;  you  must 
come  to  me ;  you  cannot  live  without  me.  Don't  imagine  you 
can  live  by  yourselves,  or  you  will  fall  back  into  the  slough  of 
your  own  impurity  and  corruption."  The  world  does  not  like 
to  hear  this.  The  Catholic  Church  insists  that  she  .alone  under- 
stands what  education  means ;  the  world  does  not  like  to  hear 
that.  But  I  come  here  to-night  to  prove  it,  not  only  to  you,  my 
Catholic  friends,  my  co-religionists,  but  if  there  be  one  here  who 
is  not  a  Catholic  to  him  also,  and  so  to  please  the  public  if  they 
choose  to  be  pleased ;  but  if  my  co-religionists  or  the  public 
choose  to  be  displeased,  the  truth  is  there  personified  in  the 
Church,  and  that  truth  will  remain  after  the  co-religionists  and 
the  indignant  public  are  all  swept  away. 

There  are  three  system's  of  education  that  are  before  us  in 
this  country.  There  are  three  classes  of  men  who  are  talking 
about  education ;  namely — those  who  go  for  what  is  called  a 
thoroughly  secular  system  ;  those  who  go  for  a  denominational 
system,  as  far  as  it  is  Protestant ;  and  the  Catholic,  who  goes  in 
for  Catholic  education.  Let  us  examine  the  three.  There  is  a 
large  class  in  England  and  in  America  who  assume  the  tone  of 
the  philosopher,  and  who,  with  great  moral  dignity,  and  infinite 


Catholic  Education.  361 

presumption,  lay  down  the  law  for  their  neighbors,  and  tell 
them,  "  There  is  no  use  quarrelling,  my  dear  Baptists  and 
Methodists,  and  you,  pestering  Catholics ;  on  the  other  hand, 
you  want  your  schools— every  one  wants  their  own  school ;  let 
us  adopt  a  beautiful  system  of  education,  that  will  take  in  every 
one,  and  leave  your  religious  differences  among  yourselves  ;  let 
us  do  away  with  religion  altogether.  The  child  has  a  great  deal 
to  be  taught  independent  of  religion.  There  is  history,  phil- 
osophy, geography,  geology,  engineering,  steam  works  ;  all  these 
things  can  be  taught  without  any  reference  to  God  at  all.  So 
let  us  do  this  ;  let  us  adopt  non-sectarian  education."  Now, 
my  friends,  these  are  two  big  words  :  non-sectarian — a  word  of 
five  syllables — and  education  ;  nine  syllables  altogether.  Now, 
when  people  adopt  great  big  words',  in  this  way,  you  should 
always  be  on  your  guard  against  them  ;  because,  if  I  wanted  to 
palm  off  something  not  true,  I  would  not  set  it  out  in  plain 
English,  but  try  to  involve  it  in  big  words ;  for,  as  the  man  in 
the  story  says,  "  if  it  is  not  sense,  at  least  it  is  Greek."  So, 
these  two  words,  non-sectarian  education,  if  you  wish  to  know 
what  they  mean,  turn  it  into  English.  Non-sectarian  education, 
in  good  old  Saxon  English,  means  teaching  without  God:  five 
syllables.  Teaching  your  children,  fathers  and  mothers,  and 
educating  them  without  God !  Not  a  word  about  God,  no  more 
than  if  God  did  not  exist !  .  He  can  be  spoken  of  in  the  family ; 
He  may  be  preached  in  the  temple,  or  in  the  church  ;  but  there 
is  one  establishment  in  the  land  where  God  must  not  come  in ; 
where  God  must  not  be  mentioned — and  that  establishment  is 
the  place  where  the  young  are  to  receive  the  education  that  is 
to  determine  their  life,  both  for  time  and  eternity ;  the  place 
where  the  young  are  to  receive  that  education  upon  which 
eternity  depends.  The  question  of  heaven  or  hell,  for  every 
child  there,  depends  upon  that  education,  and  that  education 
must  be  given  without  one  mention  of  the  name  of  the  God  of 
Heaven  ! 

Try  to  let  it  enter  into  your  minds  what  this  amiable  system 
is.  This  beautiful  system  is  founded  upon  two  principles, 
which  lie  at  the  bottom  of  it ;  namely — The  first  principle  is,  that 
man  can  attain  perfection  without  the  aid  of  Jesus  Christ  at  all. 
This  system  of  education  does  not  believe  in  Christ.  It  is  the 
Masonic  principle;  the  principle  of  the  Freemasons  over  again 


362  Catholic  Education. 

namely :  that  God  has  made  us  so,  that  without  any  help  from 
Him  at  all,  without  any  shadow  of  grace,  or  sacrament,  or 
religion,  we  can  work  out  perfection  in  ourselves  ;  therefore,  we 
are  independent  of  God.  It  is  the  last  result  of  human  pride ; 
and  hence,  the  secular  education  which  does  not  take  cognizance 
of  God,  says,  we  can  bring  up  these  children  to  be  what  they 
ought  to  be,  without  teaching  them  anything  about  God.  The 
second  principle  upon  which  it  is  based  is,  that  the  end  of 
human  life,  under  the  Christian  dispensation,  is  not  what  Christ, 
our  Lord,  or  St.  Paul,  supposed  it  to  be,  but  something  else. 
The  Scriptures  declare  that  the  end  of  the  Christian's  purposes 
in  this  life  should  be  to  incorporate  himself  with  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  and  to  grow  into  the  fullness  of  his  age  and  his  manhood 
in  Christ ;  to  put  on  the  Lord — the  unity,  the  love,  the  generos- 
ity, and  every  virtue  of  our  Divine  Lord  and  Saviour.  This  is 
to  be  the  end  of  the  Christian  man ;  the  purpose  of  his  life,  on 
which  all  depends.  Now,  these  principles  are  expressly  denied 
on  the  part  of  those  who  teach  without  God.  Can  they  teach 
without  God — the  Almighty  God,  who  has  them  in  the  hollow 
of  His  hand?  The  principle  is  absurd  in  itself.  To  teach 
human  sciences  without  God  is  an  impossibility.  For  instance, 
can  you  teach  history  without  God  ?  The  very  first  passage  of 
history  says :  "  In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heavens  and 
the  earth  ;  "  and,  therefore,  in  this  system  of  education,  the  pro- 
fessor of  history,  the  teacher,  must  say:  "  My  dear  children,  I 
am  going  to  teach  you  history ;  but  I  must  not  begin  at  the 
beginning ;  for  there  we  find  God,  and  He  is  not  allowed  in  the 
school !  "  Can  you  teach  philosophy  without  God  ?  Philosophy 
is  defined  to  be  the  pursuit  after  wisdom.  It  is  the  science  that 
traces  effects  to  their  causes  ;  and  the  philosopher  proceeds 
from  the  existence  of  the  firsL  cause  ;  and  that  first  cause  is 
God ;  therefore  the  philosophy  that  excludes  God  must  begin 
with  the  second  cause  :  just  as  if  a  man  wanted  to  teach  a  little 
boy  how  to  cast  up  sums,  and  he  said,  "  We  will  begin  with 
number  two ;  there  is  no  number  one."  The  child  would  turn 
round  and  say,  "  Is  not  number  two  a  multiplication  of  number 
one  ?  How  can  there  be  a  number  two  unless  there  is  a  number 
one  to  be  multiplied?"  Can  a  man  teach  the  alphabet  and 
leave  out  the  first  letter  A,  and  say,  let  us  begin  with  the  letter 
B  ?     Such  is  the  attempt  to  teach  philosophy  or  history  without 


Catholic  Education.  363 

God.  Can  they  teach  geology  without  God  ?  Can  they  exclude 
from  their  disquisitions  upon  the  earth,  and  the  earth's  surface, 
and  the  soil  of  the  earth — can  they  exclude  the  Creator's  hand  ? 
They  attempt  to  do  it ;  but  in  their  very  attempt  they  preach 
their  infidelity.  Hence,  no  man  can  teach  geology  without 
being  either  a  profound  and  pious  believer  in  revelation,  or  an 
avowed  and  open  infidel.  In  a  word,  not  one  of  these  human 
sciences  is  there  that  does  not,  in  its  ultimate  result  and  an- 
alysis, fall  back  upon  the  first  truth — the  fountain  of  all  truth — 
the  cause  of  all  certainty — and  that  is  God. 

But,  putting  all  these  considerations  aside,  let  us  suppose  we 
gave  our  children  to  these  men  to  instruct  them ;  they  say,  the 
parents  can  teach  at  home  any  form  of  religion  they  like.  Let 
us  suppose  we' give  our  children  to  the  instruction  of  these  men. 
Do  they  know  how  to  educate  them  ?  They  don't  know  what 
the  word  education  means.  What  does  it  mean  ?  It  means,  in 
its  very  etymology,  to  bring  forth,  to  develop,  to  bring  out  what 
is  in  the  mind.  That  little  child  of  seven  years  is  the  father  of 
the  man.  It  is  only  seven  years  of  age,  but  it  is  the  father  of 
the  man  that  will  be  in  twenty  years  time.  Now,  to  educate 
and  bring  out  in  that  child  every  faculty,  every  power  of  his 
soul,  that  he  will  require  for  the  exercise  of  his  jnanhood  to- 
morrow— that  is  the  true  meaning  of  the  word  education.  In 
the  human  soul  there  are  two  distinct  systems  of  powers,  both 
necessary  for  the  man,  both  acting  upon  and  influencing  his  life. 
First  of  all,  is  the  intelligence  of  a  man  ;  he  must  receive  educa- 
tion. But  there  is,  together  with  that  pure  intellect  or  intelli- 
gence, there  is  the  heart  that  must  also  be  educated  ;  there  are 
the  affections  ;  there  is  the  will ;  and  as  knowledge  is  necessary 
for  the  intellect,  divine  grace  is  necessary  for  the  heart  and  for 
the  will.  If  you  give  to  your  child  every  form  of  human  knowl- 
edge, and  pour  into  him  ideas  in  abundance,  and  develop  and 
bring  forth  every  faculty  of  his  intellect,  and  let  nothing  be  hid 
from  him  in  the  way  of  knowledge,  but  do  not  mind  his  heart, 
and  do  not  educate  his  spirit  and  affections — how  is  he  to  sub- 
due his  passions?  Do  not  speak  to  him  of  his  moral  duties, 
which  are  to  be  the  sinews  of  his  life,  and  do  not  attempt  at  all 
to  strengthen,  and  teach  the  will  to  bow  to  the  intellect ;  do  not 
speak  to  him  of  his  duties,  nor  the  things  that  he  must  practice— 
what  will  you  have  at  the  end   of  the  education  ?     An  intel- 


364  Catholic  Education. 

lectual  monster.  Fancy  a  little  child,  five  or  six  yeais  old.  Sup. 
pose  all  the  growth  was  turned  into  his  head,  and  the  rest  of  his 
body  remained  fixed ;  in  a  few  years  you  would  have  a  monster ; 
you  would  have  a  little  child  with  the  head  of  a  giant  upon  him. 
Don't  attempt  to  purify  the  affections,  and  you  will  develop,  in- 
deed, the  intellect,  but  the  other  powers  will  be  in  such  dispro- 
portion that  you  have  made  an  intellectual  monster.  You  have 
made  something  worse,  you  have  made  a  moral  monster !  It  is 
quite  true,  knowledge  is  power.  But  all  power  in  creation  re- 
quires restraint  in  order  to  be  useful.  Without  such  restraint, 
it  is  hurtful  and  destructive.  The  horse  will  serve  you  only  as 
long  as  you  can  keep  him  in  hand  with  bit  and  bridle.  The 
locomotive  is  useful  only  as  long  as  the  engineer's  hand  controls 
it.  The  lightning,  wThich  unrestrained  would  destroy  you-,  be- 
comes the  messenger  of  your  thoughts  when  guided  and  re- 
strained by  the  electric  wire.  You  have  given  that  man  power 
by  giving  him  knowledge.  But  you  have  not  given  him  a  single 
principle  to  purify,  and  influence,  or  restrain  that  power,  so  as  to 
use  it  properly.  Therefore,  you  have  made  a  moral  monster. 
And,  now,  that  man  is  all  the  more  wicked,  and  all  the  more 
heartless,  and  all  the  more  remorseless  and  impure,  in  precisely 
the  same  proportion  as  you  succeed  in  making  him  cultured  and 
learned.  This  is  the  issue  of  this  far-famed  system  of  non-sec- 
tarian education. 

There  is  another  system  of  education,  and  it  is  that  of  our 
separated  brethren  in  this  land*  who  say  that  they  are  quite  as 
indignant  as  we  are,  and  as  horrified  at  the  idea  of  an  utterly 
Godless  education ;  that  they  do  not  go  in  for  a  Godless  educa- 
tion ;  on  the  contrary,  they  mean  to  have  God  everywhere. 
They  are  trying  now  to  put  Him  in  the  American  Constitution 
if  they  can  succeed.  They  also  build  their  schools ;  and  they 
think  that  Catholics  are  the  most  unreasonable  people  in  the 
world  because  we  do  not  consent  to  send  our  children  to  them. 
They  say,  "  What  objection  can  you  have  to  the  Bible  ?  Don't 
you  believe  in  it  as  well  as  we  do?"  They  say,  "  Cannot  you 
send  your  children  to  us  on  the  platform  of  our  common  Chris- 
tianity ?  There  are  a  great  many  things  that  we  believe  to- 
gether." They  say,  "  We  will  not  ask  to  teach  the  children  one 
iota  against  the  Catholic  worship  ;  nor  ask  them  to  participate 
ill  any  religious  teaching,  only  as  far  as  they  hold  that  general 


CatJwlic  Education.  365 

truth  In  common  with  our  Protestant  children."  So  they  ask 
us  to  stand  with  them  on  the  platform  of  a  common  Christianity? 
Well,  my  friends,  a  great  many  Catholics  are  taken  by  this,  ana 
think  it  is  very  unreasonable,  and  that  it  is  almost  bigotry  in 
the  Catholic  Church  to  refuse  it.  Well,  let  us  but  examine  what 
the  platform  of  our  common  Christianity  allows ;  what  does  it 
mean?  Here  is  a  Protestant  school,  carried  out  oil  Protestant 
principles.  Let  us  suppose  that  they  shut  up  the  Protestant 
Bible,  and  put  it  aside,  but  carry  on  the  school  on  Protestant 
principles  as  far  as  they  go  in  common  with  the  Catholic  faith  ; 
the  Catholic  is  invited  to  share  the  school  with  them.  First  of 
all,  my  friends,  how  far  do  we  go  together?  I  don't  know  if 
there  be  any  Protestant  here ;  if  there  is  I  don't  wish  to  say  a 
harsh,  disrespectful,  or  unpleasant  word  ;  but  let  us  consider  how 
far  we  can  go  together — the  Protestants  and  Catholics  !  Well, 
they  answer,  first  of  all,  "  We  believe  in  the  existence  of  God." 
Thanks  be  to  God,  we  do  ! — the  Protestants  and  Catholics  are 
united  on  that ;  both  believe  there  is  a  God  above  us.  The 
next  great,  dogma  of  Christianity  is — "  We  believe  in  the  Divin- 
ity of  Christ."  Stop,  my  friends !  I  am  afraid  that  we  must 
shake  hands  and  part.  I  am  afraid  the  platform  of  our  common 
Christianity  is  too  narrow.  Are  you  aware  that  it  is  not  neces- 
sary for  a  Protestant  to  believe  in  the  Divinity  of  Jesus  Christ  ? 
A  great  many  Protestants  do  believe  it,  most  piously  and  most 
fervently ;  a  great  many  Protestants  believe  in  it  as  we  do.  It 
is  most  emphatically  true,  however,  that  there  are  clergymen  of 
the  Church  of  England  preaching  in  Protestant  churches 
throughout  England,  who  deny  the  Divinity  of  Jesus  Christ ; 
and  it  is  emphatically  true  that  at  this  very  moment  the  whole 
Protestant  world  is  trying  to  get  rid  of  the  Athanasian  Creed, 
because  that  creed  says  whoever  does  not  believe  in  the  Divinity 
of  Jesus  Christ  cannot  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 
Therefore,  I  must  fling  back  this  assertion.  I  cannot  grant  it. 
I  wish  to  God  I  could.  No,  my  friends,  if,  to-morrow,  the  An- 
glican clergy  who  have  written  against  the  Divinity  of  our  Lord, 
and  against  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures,  and  against  all 
forms  of  religion,  in  works  that  are  printed,  asking  all  the  pious 
Protestants  of  England  to  believe  in  their  ideas — professors  of 
England  enjoying  their  yearly  salaries  ;  preaching  religion  (God 
save  the  mark  !) — if  one  of  these  men  were  to  appear  on  tral  to- 


j66  Catholic  Education. 

morrow,  the  Queen  and  her  Council  would  decide  that  the  Di* 
vinity  of. Christ  is  not  a  necessary  doctrine.  You  go  one  step 
beyond  the  existence  of  God,  and  the  platform  is  overthrown  ; 
and  the  Catholic  and  the  Protestant  child  can  no  longer  stand 
side  by  side.  Into  that  Protestant  school  goes  a  Protestant  child, 
to  be  taught  his  religion.  Everything  that  his  religion  requires 
him  to  believe  he  is  taught,  but  the  Catholic  child,  before  he 
can  go  in  to  receive  his  instruction,  must  leave  behind  him,  out- 
side the  door,  his  belief  in  the  Sacraments,  Confession,  the  Holy 
Communion,  prayers  for  the  dead,  the  Blessed  Virgin,  all  the 
saints,  the  duty  of  self-examination  and  of  prayer ;  in  a  word, 
all  the  specific  duties,  all  the  principles  of  the  Catholic  religion 
must  be  forgotten  and  ignored  by  that  Catholic  child  before  he 
can  come  down  low  enough  to  take  a  seat  on  the  platform  with 
his  little  Protestant  brother.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  we  should 
not  like  to  do  it  ?  If  you  should  live  in  a  beautiful  house,  well 
furnished,  with  every  convenience,  and  your  neighbor  was  living 
in  a  damp  cellar,  where  it  was  cold  and  dark  ;  and  if  he  asked  you 
to  come  down  and  live  with  him,  you  would  answer,  "  I  am  much 
obliged,  my  dear  friend;  but  I  prefer  not."  If  you  had  a  good 
dinner  of  roast  beef,  and  your  neighbor  had  only  a  salt  herring; 
and  he  requested  you  to  eat  with  him,  you  would  answer,  "  No, 
I  can't  do  it."  And  so,  when  they  ask  us  to  come  down  from 
the  heights  of  our  Catholic  knowledge,  to  go  out  of  the  atmos 
phere  of  the  sacraments  and  of  the  divine  presence  of  Jesus 
Christ,  the  atmosphere  of  responsibility  to  God,  realized  and 
asserted  in  confession  and  communion ;  and  from  the  interces- 
sory prayer  of  Mary,  the  mother  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  of  the 
saints ;  and  ask  us  to  forget  our  dead,  ask  us  to  give  up  every- 
thing that  a  Catholic  holds  dear,  that  we  may  have  the  privi- 
lege of  standing  upon  the  miserable  platform  of  "  our  common 
Christianity,"  with  our  Protestant  brethren ;  we  must  say  that 
we  are  much  obliged  to  them,  but  beg  to  decline  their  offer.  I 
say  it  is  a  meagre  meal  that  they  offer  us  ;  but  inasmuch  as  we 
have  something  a  great  deal  better  and  more  luxurious  at  home, 
we  beg  leave  to  be  excused";  and  if  they  choose  to  come  to  us, 
let  them  step  up  to  our  Catholic  schools  and  find  all  that  they 
can  find  in  their  Protestant  schools  and  a  great  deal  more  ;  but 
if  they  choose  not  to  do  it,  we  cannot  help  it,  we  cannot  gc 
down  to  them,  never ! 


Catholic  Education.  367 

Now,  on  the  principle  of  Catholic  education,  the  Catholic 
Church  says:  "I  know  how  to  educate;  there  is  no  single 
power  in  that  child's  soul,  not  a  single  faculty,  either  intellectual, 
moral,  or  spiritual,  that  I  will  not  bring  forth  into  its  full  bloom 
That  child  requires  knowledge  for  its  intelligence ;  and  every 
form  of  human  knowledge  ;  so  that  we  can  compete  with  every 
other  teacher  in  the  world."  This  the  Church  provides,  so  that 
she  fears  no  competition,  but  can  hold  her  own  in  every  branch 
of  secular  education.  Some  time  ago  there  was  a  Commission 
issued  by  the  British  Government,  to  examine  the  schools  of 
Ireland.  They  thought  to  convict  our  Catholic  schools  of  in- 
efficiency ;  at  least  they  thought  that  we  paid  so  much  attention 
to  religion,  that  we  did  not  give  the  children  enough  secular 
knowledge.  Their  Commissioners  went  through  the  land,  and 
solemnly  reported,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  that  they  found 
that  no  schools  in  Ireland  imparted  so  much  secular  knowledge  as 
the  Christian  Brothers  and  the  Nuns.  They  had  to  say  it.  The 
teachers  in  the  other  schools  declared  that  secular  knowledge 
was  their  first  object,  and  religion,  if  admitted  at  all,  a  secondary 
thing.  The  Christian  Brothers  said  :  religion  first,  and  secular 
knowledge  afterward.  The  other  schools  admitted  a  miserable 
modicum  of  religion,  in  order  to  induce  the  child  to  receive 
secular  education  ;  but  the  Christian  Brothers  admitted  secular 
knowledge,  in  order  to  induce  in  the  child's  heart  and  soul 
religion.  And  yet,  in  the  rivalry,  the  Catholic  Church  was  so 
completely  ahead — even  in  imparting  secular  knowledge — that 
our  enemies,  on  this  question  of  secular  education,  were  obliged 
to  acknowledge  that  there  is  nothing  at  all  in  Ireland  like  the 
schools  of  the  Christian  Brothers  and  of  the  Nuns. 

The  Church  says,  "  Let  no  fountain  of  human  knowledge  be 
denied.  Let  every  light  which  human  knowledge  and  science 
can  bring,  be  thrown  upon  that  intelligence.  I  am  not  afraid 
of  it.  I  desire  that  the  child  may  have  intelligence  ;  the  more 
I  can  flood  that  intellect  with  the  light,  the  better  guarantee  I 
have  that  the  man  will  be  a  true  and  fervent,  because  an  em- 
inently intellectual,  Catholic."  But  the  Church  adds,  "  that 
child's  heart  requires  to  be  instructed  ;  that  child's  affections  re- 
quire to  be  directed;  that  child's  passions  must  be  purified; 
that  child  must  be  made  familiar  with  the  things  and  joys  of 
heaven  before  he  becomes  familiar  with  the  sights  and  joys  of 


368  Catholic  Education. 

earth."  Therefore,  she  takes  the  child,  before  he  comes  to  the 
age  of  reason,  and  makes  his  young  eyes  to  be  captivated  with 
the  images,  and  sweetness,  and  spiritual  beauties  of  Jesus  and 
Mary  ;  and  draws,  and  makes  that  young  heart  full  of  love  for 
the  Redeemer  before  the  appeal  of  passion  excites  the  earthly 
love ;  before  the  mystery  of  iniquity  that  is  in  the  world  is 
revealed  to  his  reason.  Therefore,  she  draws  that  child,  and 
familiarises  his  mind  with  the  words  of  faith,  and  the  lafiguage 
of  heaven  and  prayer ;  intermingling  with  his  amusements  and 
studies  an  clement  of  devotion  and  of  religion.  Because  she 
recognizes,  that  as  much  as  the  world  stands  in  need  of  intel- 
lectual men,  far,  far  more  does  it  stand  in  need  of  honest  men, 
pure  men,  high-minded  men.  Because  she  knows  if  knowledge 
is  not  intermingled  with  grace,  that  knowledge  without  grace 
becomes  a  curse  instead  of  a  blessing.  It  was  the  curse  of  the 
world  that  it  was  so  intellectual  in  the  era  of  Augustus,  because, 
says  St.  Paul,  "  They  refused  to  admit  God  into  their  knowl- 
edge ;  and  God  gave  them  up  to  a  reprobate  sense."  What 
follows  ?  Every  faculty  of  the  mind,  of  the  affections,  as  well 
as  of  the  intellect,  is  brought  out  in  that  child ;  so  that  the 
whole  soul  is  developed,  and  has  fair  play,  and  is  brought  forth, 
under  the  system  of  Catholic  education. 

Which  of  these  three  systems,  think  you,  is  the  most  neces- 
sary for  the  world  ?  Ah  !  my  friends,  I  was  asked  to  please  the 
public  as  well  as  my  co-religionists.  I  wish  to  God  I  could 
please  the  public  with  such  a  doctrine  as  this,  and  propound 
the  truth  ;  and  say  to  the  public,  to  every  father  and  mother  in 
America,  Protestant  and  Catholic — when  God  gave  you  that 
child,  it  was  only  that,  by  your  action  and  by  your  education, 
that  child  might  grow  into  the  resemblance  of  Jesus  Christ ;  it 
was  only  that  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  might  be  multiplied  in 
men,  that  men  are  born  at  all.  What  do  you  imagine  we  came 
into  this  world  for  ?  To  become  rich  ?  It  is  hard  for  the  rich 
man  to  be  saved  !  To  become  great  and  wondrous  before  the 
world's  eyes?  Oh,  this  greatness  is  like  the  mist  which  the 
rays  of  the  morning  sun  dispel.  No !  God  made  us  for  eter- 
nity ;  and,  now,  eternity  depends  upon  our  bringing  out  in  our 
hearts,  in  our  affections,  in  the  interest  and  harmony  of  our 
lives,  in  the  simple  faith  and  belief  of  our  souls,  in  every  highest 
virtue — bringing  out  within  us  and  clothing  ourselves  with  the 


Catholic  Education.  369 

Lord  Jesus  Christ.  And,  now,  I  ask  again,  which  of  the  three 
systems  of  education  is  likely  to  do  this?  Would  to  God  that 
I  could  please  the  public  of  America,  when  I  preach  Jesus 
Christ,  and  Him  alone.  Now,  surely  it  is  to  our  schools  that 
we  can  apply  His  word  who  said,  "  Suffer  the  little  children  to 
come  unto  Me."  And  if  the  public  are  not  pleased  when  they 
hear  His  name;  when  they  hear  how  they  are  to  implant  Him 
in  their  children's  lives — all  I  can  do  is  to  pray  for  the  pub- 
lic, that  the  Almighty  God  may  open  their  blind  eyes,  and  let  in 
the  pure  light  into  their  darkened  intellects. 

I  know,  my  friends,  tjiat  it  is  hard  upon  the  Catholics  of  this 
country  to  be  constantly  called  upon  to  build  one  set  of  schools 
for  Catholics,  and  to  be  obliged,  as  citizens,  to  build  another 
set,  and  furnish  them,  for  persons  wealthier  or  better  off  than 
themselves.  It  is  a  hardship  ;  and  I  don't  think  the  State — 
with  great  respect  to  the  authorities — ought  to  call  upon  you  to 
do  it.  But,  still,  great  as  the  hardship  is,  when  you  consider 
that  your  children  receive  in  the  Catholic  schools  what  they 
cannot  receive  elsewhere  ;  when  you  consider  that  your  own 
hopes  for  heaven  are  bound  up  in  these  children,  and  that  the 
education  they  need  they  can  receive  only  in  the  Catholic 
school,  and  nowhere  else — you  must  put  up  with  this  disadvan- 
tage, and  make  this  sacrifice,  among  many  others,  to  gain 
heaven.  For  it  is  written,  "  The  kingdom  of  heaven  suffers 
violence,  and  the  violent  shall  bear  it  away." 


THE  NATIONAL  MUSIC  OF 
IRELAND. 


ADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN  :  The  subject  on  which 
t\  WM$  I  ProPose  to  address  you  this  evening  is  already,  I 
am  sure,  sufficiently  suggested  to  .you  by  the  beau- 
tiful harp  that  stands  before  me.  The  subject  of  the 
lecture  is  the  national  music  of  Ireland  and  the  bards  of  Ire- 
land, as  recorded  in  the  history  of  the  nation.  I  have  chosen 
this  subject,  my  dear  friends,  whereon  to  address  you,  and  if 
you  ask  me  why — knowing  that  it  was  to  be  my  privilege  to 
address  an  audience  mostly  of  my  fellow-countrymen,  I  thought 
that  I  could  find  no  theme  on  which,  as  an  Irishman,  to  address 
my  fellow-countrymen,  more  fitting  than  that  of  music.  I  remem- 
ber that,  amongst  the  grandest  and  most  ancient  titles  that  his- 
tory gives  to  Ireland,  there  was  the  singular  title  of  "  the  Island 
of  Song."  I  remember  that  Ireland  alone,  amongst  all  the  na- 
tions of  the  earth,  has,  for  her  national  emblem,  a  musical  instru- 
ment. When  other  nations  stand  in  the  battle-field,  in  the  hour 
of  national  effort  and  national  triumph — when  other  nations 
celebrate  their  victories — when  they  unfold  the  national  banner, 
we  behold  there  the  lion,  or  soiue  emblem  of  power ;  the  cross, 
or  some  emblem  of  faith;  tfui  3U1S — as  in  the  "  Star-spangled 
Banner"  of  America — an  emblem  of  rising  hope  ;  but  it  is  only 
in  the  bygone  days,  when  IreJ'/.d  had  a  national  standard,  and 
upheld  it  gloriously  on  the  battle-field — it  was  only  then  that 
Ireland  unfolded  that  national  standard,  which,  floating  out  upon 
the  breezes  of  heaven,  displayed  embodied  in  that  "  field  of 
green"  the  golden  harp  of  Erin.  What  wonder,  then,  that,  when 
I  would  choose  a  subject  pleasing  to  you  and  to  me — something 


The  National  Music  of  Ireland.  371 

calculated  co  .stir  all  those  secret  emotions  of  national  life  and 
historical  glory  which  are  still  our  inheritance,  though  we  are  a 
conquered  people — that  I  should  have  chosen  the  subject  of  our 
national  music.  But,  first  of  all,  my  friends,  when  A-e  analyze 
the  nature  of  man,  we  find  that  he  is  a  being  made  up  of  a  body 
and  a  soul ;  that  is  to  say,  there  are  two  distinct  elements  of  na- 
ture which  unite  in  man.  There  is  the  body — perishable- 
material — gross ;  there  is  the  soul — spiritual — angelic,  and  coming 
to  us  from  heaven.  For,  when  the  Creator  made  man,  He 
formed,  indeed,  his  body  from  out  of  the  slime  of  the  earth;  but 
He  breathed,  from  His  own  divine  lips,  the  vital  spark,  and  set 
upon  his  soul  the  sign  of  divine  resemblance  to  Himself.  The 
soul  of  man  is  the  seat  of  thought ;  it  is  the  seat  of  affection  ;  it 
is  the  seat  of  all  the  higher  spiritual  and  pure  emotions.  But, 
grand  as  this  soul  is — magnificent  in  its  nature,  in  its  origin,  in 
its  ultimate  destiny — it  is  so  united  to  the  body  of  man,  that, 
without  the  evidence  of  the  senses  of  the  body,  the  soul  can  re- 
ceive no  idea,  nor  the  spirit  throb  to  any  high  or  spiritual  emo- 
tion. The  soul,  therefore,  dwelling  within  us,  is  ever  waiting  as 
it  were  to  receive  the  sensations  that  the  five  bodily  senses  con- 
vey to  it.  All  its  pleasure  or  its  pain,  its  sorrow  or  its  joy — all 
must  come  through  the  evidence  of  these  senses.  The  eye  looks 
upon  something  pleasant — upon  these  beautiful  flowers  of  na- 
ture's loveliness ;  and  the  pleasure  that  the  eye  receives  passes 
to  the  soul,  and  creates  the  emotion  of  the  feeling  of  pleasure  in 
the  body,  for  a  thing  of  beauty,  and,  in  the  soul,  of  gratitude  to 
the  Lord  God  who  gave  it. 

Amongst  all  these  senses  of  the  body — although  the  eye  be 
the  master,  as  St.  Augustine  tells  us,  still  the  sensations  which 
the  soul  receives  through  the  ear — the  sense  of  hearing — are  the 
highest,  most  innocent,  and  spiritual  of  all.  The  evidence  of  the 
eye  seems  to  appeal  more  directly  to  the  intelligence  of  the 
mind  ;  it  stirs  us  up  to  think ;  it  seldoms  calls  up  strong, 
passionate,  instantaneous  emotion  ;  but  it  stirs  up  the  mind  to 
think  and  consider.  The  ear,  on  the  other  hand,  seems  to  bring 
its  testimony  more  directly  to  the  spirit — to  the  seat  of  the 
affections  in  man.  The  sense  of  hearing  appeals  more  to  the 
heart  than  to  the  mind.  Hence  it  is  that,  although  "  faith 
comes  by  hearing,"  and  faith  is  the  act  of  the  intellect,  bowing 
down  before  that  great  truth  which  it  apprehends  through  the 


372  The  National  Music  of  Ireland. 

sense  of  hearing,  and  at  the  sound  of  the  preacher's  voice- 
it  i=  still  the  medium  through  which  that  faith  is  received  into 
the  heart.  This  the  Church  of  God  has  always  recognized,  and, 
from  the  earliest  ages,  has  striven,  by  the  sweet  strains  of  her 
sacred  music,  to  move  the  affections  of  man  towards  God.  But, 
in  truth,  has  it  not  been  from  the  beginning  thus — that  men 
have  always  been  accustomed  to  express  their  emotions  of  joy 
or  of  sorrow  to  the  sound  of  song?  Our  first  parent  had  not 
yet  quitted  this  earth — this  earth,  which  was  made  so  miserable 
by  his  sin — until  his  eyes  beheld,  amongst  the  descendants  of 
Cain,  a  man  named  Tubal,  "  who  was  the  father  of  those  who 
play  upon  organs  and  musical  instruments."  It  was  fitting 
that  the  first  musician  the  world  ever  beheld  should  have  been 
a  child  of  the  reprobate  and  murderer,  Cain.  Almighty  God 
permitted  that  music  should  start  from  out  the  children  of  the 
most  unhappy  of  men.  No  doubt  they  sought,  by  the  sweet 
strains  of  melody,  to  lighten  the  burden  that  pressed  upon  the 
heart  and  spirit  of  their  most  unhappy  father.  No  doubt  they 
tried  in  the  same  strains  of  sweet  melody  to  give  vent  to  their 
own  sorrows,  or  to  lighten  the  burden  of  their  grief  and  despair, 
by  expressing  it  in  the  language  of  song.  For  so  it  is  in  the 
nature  of  man.  The  little  babe  in  its  mother's  arms  expresses 
its  sense  of  pain  by  the  wail  of  sorrow  ;  and  expresses  its  mean- 
ing so  well,  that  when  the  mother  sees  her  child's  lips  open  and 
emit  the  high,  inarticulate  cry  of  joy,  she  knows  that  the 
mysterious  sunshine  of  delight  and  pleasure  is  beaming  upon 
the  soul  of  her  child.  The  mother  herself  may  have  never  sung 
until  the  voice  of  nature  is  awakened  within  her  when  first  she 
bears  her  first-born  in  her  arms.  Then  she  learns  the  lay  that 
soothes  it  to  sleep — 

"  The  mother,  taught  by  Nature's  hand, 
Her  child,  when  weeping, 
Will  lull  to  sleeping 
With  some  sweet  song  of  her  native  land." 

That  music — the  natural  melody  of  music — has  a  powerful  in- 
fluence upon  the  soul  of  man,  I  need  not  tell  you.  There  is  not 
one  amongst  us  who  has  not  experienced,  at  some  time  or  other, 
in  listening  to  the  strains  of  sweet  melody — the  strains  of  song — 
the  sensation  either  of  joy  increased,  or  sorrow  soothed,  in  his 
soul.     Thus,  of  old  when  Saul,  the   King  of  Israel,  abandoned 


The  National  Music  of  Ireland.  375 

his  God,  and  an  evil  spirit  came  upon  him,  from  time  to  time 
shadowing  and  clouding  His  mind  with  despair,  bringing  to  him  the 
frenzy  of  ungovernable  sorrow — then  his  skillful  men  sought  and 
brought  him  the  youth  David,  and  he  sat  in  the  presence  of  the 
king;  and  when  the  spirit  came  upon  Saul  and  troubled  him, 
David  took  his  harp  and  played  upon  it  ;  and  the  spirit  depart- 
ed, and  the  king  was  calmed,  and  his  mighty  sorrow  passed 
away.  So,  in  like  manner,  when  the  people  of  old  would  ex- 
press their  joy  or  their  exultation  before  the  Lord  God,  as  in  the 
day  when  the  glorious  temple  of  Jerusalem  was  opened,  one 
hundred  and  twenty  priests  came  and  stood  before  all  the 
people,  and,  from  brazen  trumpets,  sent  forth  the  voice  of 
melody ;  and  the  house  of  the  Lord  was  filled  with  music,  and 
every  heart  was  gladdened,  and  all  Israel  lifted  up  its  voice  in 
song,  in  unison  with  their  royal  Prophet  King,  as  he  played 
upon  his  harp  of  gold.  Thus  it  is,  that  amongst  the  various 
senses  and  their  evidences,  the  sense  of  hearing,  through  music, 
is  that  which  seems  most  directly  and  immediately  to  touch  the 
heart  and  the  spirit  of  man.  It  is  the  most  spiritual  in  itself  of 
all  the  senses.  The  object  that  meets  the  eye  is  something 
tangible,  substantial,  material.  The  object  that  appeals  to  the 
taste  is  something  gross  and  material.  The  thing  that  presents 
itself  to  the  senses,  through  the  touch,  must  be  palpable  and 
material.  But  what  is  it  that  the  sense  of  hearing  presents  to 
the  soul  ?  It  is  an  almost  imperceptible  wave  of  sound,  acting 
upon  a  delicate  membrane — a  fibre  the  most  delicate  in  the 
human  body — the  drum  of  the  ear,  which  is  affected  by  the 
vibration  of  the  air,  carrying  the  sound  on  its  invisible  wings. 
And  thus  it  comes  —  a  spiritual  breath,  through  the  most 
spiritual  and  soul-like  of  all  the  senses,  and  of  all  the  evidences 
those  senses  bring  to  the  soul  of  man. 

The  effect  of  music  upon  the  memory  is  simply  magical. 
Have  you  ever,  my  friends,  tested  it  ?  Is  there  anything  in  this 
world  that  so  acts  upon  our  memory  as  the  sound  of  the  old, 
familiar  song,  that  we  may  not  have  heard  for  years  ?  We 
heard  it,  perhaps,  in  some  lonely  glen,  in  dear  old  Ireland,  let  us 
say.  We  have  been  familiar  from  our  youth  with  the  sound  of 
that  ancient  melody,  as  the  man  sang  it  following  his  horses, 
ploughing  the  field ;  as  the  old  woman  murmured  it,  whilst  she 
rocked   the  child  ;  as  the  milkmaid   chanted   it,  as  she  milked 


374  The  National  Music  of  Ireland. 

the  cows  in  the  evening;  it  is  one  of  the  traditions  of  oui  young 
hearts,  and  of  our  young  senses.  Then,  when  we  leave  the 
Green  Land,  and  go  out  amongst  strange  people,  we  hear  strange 
words,  and  strange  music.  The  songs  of  our  native  land  for  a 
moment  are  forgotten,  until  upon  a  day,  perhaps,  as  we  are 
passing,  that  air,  or  old  song,  is  sung  again.  Oh,  in  an  instant, 
that  magic  power  in  the  sound  of  the  old,  familiar  notes  throngs 
the  halls  of  the  memory  with  the  dead.  They  rise  out  of  their 
graves,  the  friends  of  our  youth,  the  parents,  and  the  aged  ones, 
whom  we  loved  and  revered.  Our  first  love  rises  out  of  her 
grave,  in  all  the  freshness  of  her  beauty.  So  they  fill  the  halls 
of  the  memory,  the  ones  we  may  have  loved  in  the  past,  with 
the  friends  whom  we  never  expected  to  think  of  again. 
Well  does  the  poet  describe  it  when  he  says : 

"  When  through  life  unblest  we  rove, 

Losing  all  that  made  life  dear, 
Should  some  notes  we  used  to  love, 

In  days  of  boyhood,  meet  our  ear  ; 
Oh  !  how  welcome  breathes  the  strain, 

Wak'ning  thoughts  that  long  have  slept — 
Kindling  former  smiles  again 

In  faded  eyes  that  long  have  wept 

"  Like  the  gale  that  sighs  along 

Beds  of  oriental  flowers, 
Is  the  grateful  breath  of  song, 

That  once  was  heard  in  happier  hoars. 
Filled  with  balm  the  gale  sighs  on, 

Though  the  flowers  have  sunk  in  death  ; 
So,  when  pleasure's  dream  is  gone, 

It's  memory  lives  in  Music's  breath  ! 

"  Music  ! — oh  !  how  faint,  how  weak, 

Language  fades  before  thy  spell ! 
Why  should  feeling  ever  speak, 

When  thou  canst  breathe  her  soul  so  well? 
Friendship's  balmy  words  may  feign, 

Love's  are  even  more  false  than  they ; 
Oh  !  'tis  only  Music's  strain 

Can  sweetly  soothe,  and  not  betray ! " 

No  words  of  mine  can  exaggerate  the  power  that  music  has 
over  the  soul  of  man.  When  the  glorious  sons  of  St.  Ignatius 
—  the  magnificent  Jesuits — went  down  to  evangelize  South 
America,  to  preach  to  the  native  Indians,  the  hostile  tribes  lined 


The  National  Music  of  Ireland.  375 

the  river  bank  ;  the  savage  chieftains  and  warriors,  in  their  war- 
paint and  dress,  stood  ready  to  send  their  poisoned  arrows 
through  the  hearts  of  these  men.  They  would  not  listen  to 
them,  or  open  their  minds  to  their  influence,  until,  at  length,  one 
of  the  missionaries  who  were  in  a  boat  sailing  down  one  of  the 
great  rivers,  took  a  musical  instrument  and  began  to  play  an  old, 
sacred  melody,  and  the  others  lifted  up  their  voices  and  sang : 
sweetly  and  melodiously  they  sang,  voice  dropping  in  after 
voice,  singing  the  praises  of  Jesus  and  Mary.  The  woods  re- 
sounded to  their  peaceful  chants ;  the  very  birds  upon  the  trees 
hushed  their  songs  that  they  might  hear ;  and  the  savages  threw 
down  their  arms  and  rushed,  weaponless,  into  the  river,  following 
after  the  boats,  listening,  with  captive  hearts,  to  the  music. 
Thus,  upon  the  sound  of  song,  did  the  light  of  divine  grace, 
and  of  faith,  and  Christianity,  reach  the  savage  breasts  of 
these  Indians. 

What  shall  we  say  of  the  power  of  music  in  stirring  up  all  the 
nobler  emotions  of  man  ?  The  soldier  arrives  after  his  forced 
march,  tired,  upon  the  battle-field.  He  hopes  for  a  few  hours' 
rest  before  he  is  called  upon  to  put  forth  all  his  strength.  The 
bugle  sounds  in  the  morning,  and  this  poor  and  unrested  man  is 
obliged  to  stand  to  his  arms  all  day,  and  face  death  in  a  thou- 
sand forms.  The  tug  of  war  lasts  the  whole  day  long.  Now 
retreating,  now  advancing,  every  nerve  is  braced  up,  every  emo- 
tion excited  in  him,  until  at  length  nature  appears  to  yield,  and 
the  tired  warrior  seems  unable  to  wield  his  sword  another  hour. 
But  the  national  music  strikes  up  ;  the  bugle  and  the  trumpets 
send  forth  their  sounds  in  some  grand  national  strain  !  Then, 
with  the  clash  of  the  cymbal,  all  the  fire  is  aroused  in  the  man. 
Drooping,  fainting,  perhaps  wounded  as  he  is,  he  springs  to  his 
arms  again.  Every  nobler  emotion  of  valor  and  patriotism  is 
raised  within  him  ;  to  the  sound  of  this  music,  to  the  inspiration 
of  this  national  song,  he  rushes  to  the  front  of  the  battle,  and 
sweeps  his  enemy  from  the  field. 

Thus,  when  we  consider  the  nature  of  music,  the  philosophy 
of  music,  do  we  find  that  it  is  of  all  other  appeals  to  the  senses 
the  most  spiritual ;  that  it  is  of  all  other  appeals  to  the  soul 
the  most  powerful ;  that  it  operates  not  as  much  by  the  mode 
of  reflection  as  in  exciting  the  memory  and  the  imagination, 
causing  the  spirit  and  the  affections  of  men  to  rise  to  noblei 


3^6  The  National  Music  of  Ireland. 

efforts,  and  to  thrill  with  sublime  emotions  and  influences.  And, 
therefore,  I  say  it  is,  of  all  other  sciences,  the  most  noble  and 
the  most  godlike,  and  the  grandest  that  can  be  cultivated  by 
man  on  this  earth. 

And  now,  as  it  is  with  individuals,  so  it  is  with  nations.  As 
the  individual  expresses  his  sense  of  pain  by  the  discordant  cry 
which  he  utters  ;  as  the  individual  expresses  the  joy  of  his  soul 
by  the  clear  voice  of  natural  music  ;  so,  also,  every  nation  has 
its  own  tradition  of  music,  and  its  own  national  melody  and 
song.  Wherever  we  find  a  nation  with  a  clear,  distinct,  sweet, 
and  emphatic  tradition  of  national  music,  coming  down  from 
sire  to  son,  from  generation  to  generation,  from  the  remotest 
centuries — there  have  we  evidence  of  a  people  strong  in  char- 
acter, well  marked  in  their  national  disposition — there  have  we 
evidence  of  a  most  ancient  civilization.  But  wherever,  on  the 
other  hand,  you  find  a  people  light  and  frivolous — not  capable 
of  deep  emotions  in  religion — not  deeply  interested  in  their  na- 
tive land,  and  painfully  affected  by  her  fortunes — a  people 
easily  losing  their  nationality,  or  national  feeling,  and  easily 
mingling  with  strangers  and  amalgamating  with  them — there 
you  will  be  sure  to  find  a  people  with  scarcely  any  tradition  of 
national  melody  that  would  deserve  to  be  classed  amongst  the 
songs  of  the  nations.  Now,  amongst  these  nations,  Ireland — that 
most  ancient  and  holy  island  in  the  western  sea — claims,  and 
deservedly,  upon  the  record  of  history,  the  first  and  grandest 
pre-eminence  among  all  peoples.  I  do  not  deny  to  other  nations 
high  musical  excellence.  I  will  not  even  say  that,  in  this  our 
day,  we  are  not  surpassed  by  the  music  of  Germany,  by  the 
music  of  Italy,  or  the  music  of  England.  Germany,  for  purity 
of  style,  foi  depth  of  expression,  for  the  argument  of  song,  sur- 
passes all  the  nations  to-day.  Italy  is  acknowledged  to  be  the 
queen  of  that  lighter,  more  pleasing,  more  sparkling,  and,  to  me, 
more  pleasant  style  of  music.  In  her  own  style  of  music,  Eng- 
land is  supposed  to  be  superior  to  Italy,  and,  perhaps,  equal  to 
Germany.  But,  great  as  are  the  musical  attainments  of  these 
great  peoples,  there  is  not  one  of  these  nations,  or  any  other 
nation,  that  can  point  back  to  such  national  melody,  to  such  a 
body  of  national  music,  as  the  Irish.  Remember,  that  I  am  not 
speaking  now  of  the  labored  composition  of  some  great  master ; 
I  am  not  speaking  now  of  a  wonderful  Mass,  written  by  one 


The  National  Music  of  Ireland.  377 

man  ;  or  a  great  oratorio,  written  by  another — works  that  appeal 
to  the  ear  refined  and  attuned  by  education  ;  works  that  delight 
the  critic.  I  am  speaking  of  the  song  that  lives  in  the  hearts 
and  voices  of  all  the  people ;  I  am  speaking  of  the  national 
songs  you  will  hear  from  the  husbandman,  in  the  field,  following 
the  plough  ;  from  the  old  woman,  singing  to  the  infant  on  her 
knee  ;  from  the  milkmaid,  coming  from  the  milking  ;  from  the 
shoemaker  at  his  work,  or  the  blacksmith  at  the  forge,  while  he 
is  shoeing  the  horse.  This  is  the  true  song  of  the  nation  ;  this 
is  the  true  national  melody,  that  is  handed  down,  in  a  kind  of 
traditional  way,  from  the  remotest  ages;  until,  in  the  more  civil- 
ized and  cultivated  time,  it  is  interpreted  into  written  music  ; 
and  then  the  world  discovers,  for  the  first  time,  a  most  beautiful 
melody  in  the  music  that  has  been  murmured  in  the  glens  and 
mountain  valleys  of  the  country  for  hundreds  and  thousands  of 
years.  Italy  has  no  such  song.  Great  as  the  Italians  are,  as 
masters,  they  have  no  popularly  received  tradition  of  music. 
The  Italian  peasant — (I  have  lived  amongst  them  for  years) — 
the  Italian  peasant,  while  working  in  the  vineyard,  has  no  music 
except  two  or  three  high  notes  of  a  most  melancholy  cnaracter, 
commencing  upon  a  high  dominant  and  ending  in  a  semitone. 
The  peasants  of  Tuscany  and  of  Campagna,  when,  after  their 
day's  work,  they  meet,  in  the  summer's  evenings,  to  have  a 
dance,  have  no  music ;  only  a  girl  takes  a  tambourine,  and  beats 
upon  it,  marking  time,  and  they  dance  to  that ;  but  they  have 
no  music.  So  with  other  countries.  But  go  to  Ireland ;  listen 
to  the  old  woman,  as  she  rocks  herself  in  her  chair,  and  pulls 
down  the  hank  of  flax  for  the  spinning  ;  listen  to  the  girl  com- 
ing home  from  the  field  with  the  can  of  milk  on  her  head ;  and 
what  do  you  hear? — the  most  magnificent  melody  of  music.  Go 
to  the  country  merrymakings  and  you  will  be  sure  to  find  the 
old  fiddler,  or  old  white-headed  piper,  an  infinite  source  of  the 
brightest  and  most  sparkling  music. 

How  are  we  to  account  for  this?  We  must  seek  the  cause 
of  it  in  the  remotest  history.  It  is  a  historical  fact  that  the 
maritime  or  sea-coast  people  of  the  north  and  west  of  Europe 
were,  from  time  immemorial,  addicted  to  song.  We  know,  for 
instance,  that  in  the  remotest  ages,  the  kings  of  our  sea-girt 
island,  when  they  went  forth  upon  their  warlike  forays,  were 
always  accompanied  by  their  harper,  ct  minstrel,  who  animated 


37^  The  National  Music  of  Ireland. 

them  to  deeds  of  heroic  bravery.  Even  when  the  Danes  came 
sweeping  down  in  their  galleys  upon  the  Irish  coast,  high  in  the 
prow  of  every  war-boat  sat  the  scald,  or  poet — white-haired, 
heroic,  wrinkled  with  time — the  historian  of  all  their  national 
wisdom  and  their  national  prowess.  And  when  they  approached 
their  enemy,  sweeping  with  their  long  oars  through  the  waves, 
he  rose  in  the  hour  of  battle,  and  poured  forth  his  soul  in  song, 
and  fired  every  warrior  to  the  highest  and  most  heroic  deeds. 
Thus  it  was  in  Ireland,  when  Nial  of  the  Nine  Hostages  swept 
down  upon  the  coast  of  France,  and  took  St.  Patrick  (then  a 
youth)  prisoner ;  the  first  sounds  that  greeted  the  captive's  ear 
were  the  strains  of  our  old  Irish  harper,  celebrating  in  a  lan- 
guage he  then  knew  not,  the  glories  and  victories  of  heroes  long 
departed. 

Now,  it  was  Ireland's  fortune  that  the  sons  of  Milesius  came 
and  settled  there.  They  came  from  Spain  in  the  earliest  ages, 
and  they  brought  with  them  a  tradition  of  civilization,  of  law, 
and  of  national  melody.  They  established  a  system  of  jurispru- 
dence, established  the  reign  of  law,  and  of  national  government 
in  the  land  ;  they  made  Ireland  a  nation,  governed  by  kings 
recognizing  her  constitution  and  laws — governed  by  an  elective 
constitutional  monarchy.  Assembled  thus,  they  met  in  the  lofty 
and  heroic  halls  of  ancient  Tara.  There  our  ancient  history  tells 
us  that,  after  the  king  who  sat  upon  his  throne,  the  very  first 
places  among  the  princes  of  the  royal  family  were  given  to  the 
bards.  They  were  the  historians  of  the  country.  They  wrote 
the  history  of  the  nation  in  their  heroic  verse,  and  proclaimed 
that  history  in  their  melodious  song ;  they  were  the  priests  of 
that  ancient  form  of  Paganism,  that  ancient  and  mysterious 
Druidical  worship  whose  gloomy  mysteries  they  surrounded 
with  the  sacred  charm  of  music.  And  so  they  popularized  their 
false  gods,  by  appealing  to  the  nation's  heart,  through  song. 
They  were  the  favorite  counsellors  of  the  kings ;  they  were  the 
most  learned  men  in  the  land  ;  they  knew  all  the  national  tradi- 
tions, and  all  the  nation's  resources  ;  and,  therefore,  if  a  war  was 
to  be  planned,  or  an  alliance  to  be  formed,  or  a  treaty  to  be  made, 
the  bards  were  called  into  the  council  ;  it  was  their  wise  counsel 
that  guided  and  formed  the  national  purposes.  They  accom- 
panied the  warrior-king  to  the  field  of  battle ;  and  that  warrior- 
king's  highest  hope  was  that,  in  returning  triumphant  from  the 


The  National  Music  of  Ireland.  3;^ 

field  of  his  glory,  his  name  might  be  immortalized  amongst  his 
fellow-men,  and  enthroned  in  the  fame  of  the  bardic  verse  ;  or 
that,  even  if  he  was  borne  back  dead  upon  his  shield  from  the 
battle-field,  his  name  would  be  perpetuated,  and  his  fame 
would  live  on  in  the  hearts  and  minds  of  his  countrymen,  en- 
shrined  in  the  glories  of  national  song.  Hence  it  is,  that  from 
the  earliest  date  of  Irish  history— long  before  the  light  of  Chris- 
tianity beamed  upon  us — the  bards  were  the  greatest  men  of  the 
land.  The  minstrels  of  Erin  filled  the  land  with  the  sound  of 
their  songs ;  and  the  very  atmosphere  of  Ireland  was  impreg- 
nated with  music.  And  when  God  gave  to  our  native  land  one 
of  His  highest  gifts— a  true  poetic  child  ;  second  to  none  in 
brilliancy  of  imagination,  in  sympathy  with  nature,  in  tender- 
ness of  heart,  and  in  wonderful  copiousness  of  metaphor  and 
of  purest  language  ;  the  poet  found  the  road  to  fame  and  im- 
mortality opened  to  him  in  the  grand  old  music  of  Erin.  He ' 
had  only  to  translate  into  our  language  of  to-day  the  thoughts, 
and  to  wed  them  to  the  melody  of  the  olden  time,  and  whilst 
many  a  now  honored  name  shall  be  forgotten,  Ireland's  Tom 
Moore  shall  live  for  ever  in  his  Irish  melodies.  He  took  into 
his  gifted  hands  the  dear  harp  of  his  country,  the  long  silent 
harp  of  Erin,  he  swept  its  chords  to  the  ai  cient  lay,  and  "  gave 
all  its  notes  to  light,  freedom,  and  song." 

"  Sing,  sweet  harp,  oh  sing  to  me 

Some  song  of  ancient  days, 
Whose  sounds  in  this  sad  memory 

Long  buried  dreams  shall  raise. 
Some  lay  that  tells  of  vanished  fame 

Whose  light  once  round  us  shone, 
Of  noble  pride  now  turned  to  shame, 

And  hopes  forever  gone. 
Sing,  sad  harp,  thus  sing  to  me — 

Alike  our  doom  is  cast ; 
Both  lost  to  all  but  memory, 

We  live  but  in  the  past." 

His  doom  was  indeed  cast  with  Ireland's  harp   and    Ireland  « 
music,  and  that  doom  is  immortality. 

Addressing  that  loved  harp,  he  exclaims: 

"  Dear  harp  of  my  country,  in  darkness  I  found  thee  ; 
The  cold  chain  of  silence  had  hung  o'er  thee  long; 
When  proudly,  my  own  island  harp,  I  unbound  thee. 
And  gave  all  thy  chords  to  light,  freedom,  and  song. 


3  So  The  National  Music  of  Ireland. 

The  warm  lay  of  love,  and  the  light  note  of  gladness, 

Have  wakened  thy  fondest,  thy  liveliest  thrill, 
But  so  oft  hast  thou  echoed  the  deep  sigh  of  sadness, 

That  even  in  thy  mirth  it  will  steal  from  thee  still. 

"  Dear  harp  of  my  country,  farewell  to  thy  numbers, 

This  sweet  wreath  of  song  is  the  last  we  shall  twine  ! 
Go,  sleep,  with  the  sunshine  of  fame  on  thy  slumbers, 

Till  touched  by  some  hand  less  unworthy  than  mine. 
If  the  pulse  of  the  patriot,  soldier,  or  lover, 

Has  throbb'd  at  our  lay,  'tis  thy  glory  alone, 
I  was  but  as  the  wind  passing  heedlessly  over, 

And  all  the  wild  sweetness  I  waked  was  thine  own." 

Yes  ;  Ireland's  poet  was  a  lover  of  his  country,  and  was  smit- 
Uai  with  her  glory ;  but  finding  that  glory  eclipsed  in  the  pres- 
ent, he  went  back  to  seek  it  in  the  past,  and  found  every  ancient 
tradition  of  Erin's  ancient  greatness  still  living  in  the  hearts  of 
the  people  and  the  voice  of  their  national  song.  It  was  the 
music  of  Ireland,  as  it  was  the  bards  of  Ireland,  that  kept  the 
nation's  life-blood  warm,  even  when  that  life-blood  seemed  to  be 
flowing  from  every  vein.  It  was  the  sympathy  of  Ireland's 
music — the  strong,  tender  sympathy  of  her  bards — that  sustained 
the  national  spirit,  even  when  all  around  seemed  hopeless.  The 
first  great  passage  in  our  history,  as  recorded  by  Ireland's  poet, 
and  by  him  attuned  to  a  sweet  ancient  melody,  describes  the 
landing  of  the  Milesians  in  Ireland.  It  was  many  centuries  be- 
fore Christianity  beamed  upon  the  land.  An  ancient  Druidical 
prophecy  foretold  that  the  sons  of  a  certain  chief  called  Gadelius 
were  to  inherit  a  beautiful  island  in  the  West.  This  became  a 
dream  of  hope  to  him  and  to  his  sons  ;  so,  at  last,  they  resolved 
to  seek  this  island  of  "  Innisfail."  And,  as  the  poet  so  beauti- 
fully expresses  it — 

"  They  came  from  a  land  beyond  the  sea  ; 

And  now,  o'er  the  Western  main, 
Set  sail,  in  their  good  ships,  gallantly, 

From  the  sunny  land  of  Spain. 
'  Oh !  where's  the  isle  we've  seen  in  dreams  ? 

Our  destined  home  or  grave,'  — 
Thus  sung  they,  as,  by  the  morning's  beam*. 

They  swept  the  Atlantic  wave. 

"  And  lo,  where  afar  o'er  ocean  shines 
A  sparkle  of  radiant  green, 


The  National  Music  of  Ireland.  38  r 

As  though  in  that  deep  lay  emerald  mines, 

Whose  light  through  the  waves  was  seen. 
'Tis  Innisfail ! — 'tis  Innisfail ! ' 

Rings  o'er  the  echoing  sea, 
While,  bending  to  Heaven,  tne  warriors  hail 

The  home  of  the  brave  and  free  !  " 

For  many  years  after  their  landing-,  the  Milesians  labored  to 
make  Ireland  a  great  country,  and  they  succeeded.  But  the 
brightest  light  of  all  had  not  yet  beamed  upon  us  ;  the  light  of 
Christianity  was  not  yet  upon  the  land.  Yet  many  indications 
foretold  its  coming ;  and,  amongst  others,  there  is  one,  com- 
memorated in  ancient  tradition  and  ancient  song,  which  the  poet 
has  rendered  into  the  language  of  our  day.  We  are  told  that, 
years  before  Ireland  became  Catholic,  the  daughter  of  a  certain 
king  named  Leara,  or  Lir,  whose  name  was  Fionnuala,  was 
changed  by  some  magic  agency  into  the  form  of  a  swan  ;  and  she 
was  doomed  to  roam  through  the  lakes  and  rivers  of  Ireland, 
until  the  time  when  the  bell  of  heaven  should  be  heard  ringing 
for  the  first  Mass ;  then  the  unhappy  princess  was  to  be  restored 
to  her  natural  shape.  So  the  reasoning  bird  sailed  on,  and  she 
sang  to  the  rivers,  and  to  the  lakes,  and  to  the  cascades,  the 
song : — 

"  Silent,  Oh  Moyle,  be  the  roar  of  thy  waters  : 

Break  not,  ye  breezes,  your  chain  of  repose  ; 
While,  murmuring  mournfully,  Lir's  lonely  daughter, 

Tells  to  the  night  star  her  tale  of  woes. 
When  shall  the  swan,  her  death-note  singing, 

Sleep  with  wings  in  darkness  furl'd  ? 
When  shall  Heaven,  its  sweet  bell  ringing, 

Call  my  spirit  from  this  stormy  world  ? 

"  Sadly,  Oh  Moyle,  to  thy  winter  wave  weeping, 

Fate  bids  me  languish  long  ages  away  ; 
For  still  in  her  darkness  does  Erin  lie  sleeping  ; 

Still  doth  the  pure  light  its  dawning  delay. 
When  shall  the  day-star,  mildly  springing, 

Warm  our  isle  with  peace  and  love? 
When  shall  Heaven,  its  sweet  bell  ringing, 

Call  my  spirit  to  the  fields  above?  " 

The  light  came  ;  and  Patrick,  the  Catholic  bishop,  stood  upon 
Tara's  height,  to  meet  the  intelligence,  the  genius,  and  the  mind 
of  Ireland.  The  light  came  ;  and  Patrick,  the  bishop,  stood 
with  a  voice  ringing  to  words  never  heard  before  in  the  Celtic 


382  The  National  Music  of  Ireland. 

tongue,  and  to  a  music  newly  awakened  in  the  land,  with  the  Gos- 
pel of  Christ  upon  his  lips,  and  the  green  shamrock  in  his  hand. 
And  these  wise  Druids  leaned  upon  their  harps,  listened  and 
argued  until  conviction  seized  upon  them,  and  Dhubhac,  the 
head  of  the  bards,  seized  his  harp  and  said  :  "  Oh,  ye  kings  and 
men  of  Erin  !  this  man  speaks  the  glory  of  the  true  God ;  and 
this  harp  of  mine  shall  never  resound  again  save  unto  the  praises 
of  Patrick's  God."  Then  all  that  was  in  Ireland  of  intelligence, 
of  affection,  of  bravery,  of  energy,  of  talent,  and  of  soul,  rose 
up  ;  they  sprang  to  Patrick,  clasped  him  to  their  hearts,  and 
rose  to  the  very  height  of  Catholic  and  Christian  perfection,  with 
all  the  energy  and  the  noble  heart  of  the  old  Celtic  nation. 

Then  began  three  centuries  of  such  glory  as  the  world  nevei 
beheld  before  or  since.  The  whole  island  became  an  island  of 
saints  and  sages.  Monasteries  and  colleges  crowned  every  hill 
and  sanctified  every  valley  ;  and  this  era  of  sanctity  continued 
until  the  whole  island  became  the  monastic  centre  of  Europe 
Upon  the  rising  heights  of  Mungret,  on  the  Shannon's  banks 
five  hundred  monks,  all  well-skilled  in  music,  sang  the  praises  of 
God.  In  Bangor,  in  the  county  Down,  thousands  of  Irish 
monks  established  the  custom  of  taking  up  the  praise  of  God  in 
successive  choirs, — night  and  day,  day  and  night ; — so  that  the 
voice  of  the  singer,  the  notes  of  the  harper,  the  sound  of  the 
organ,  were  never  for  an  instant  silent  in  the  glorious  choirs  of 
that  ancient  monastery.  Then  do  we  read,  upon  the  testimony 
of  one  of  our  bitterest  enemies,  the  English  historian,  Sylvester 
Giraldus,  commonly  known  as  "  Giraldus  Cambrensis,"  that  the 
Irish  so  excelled  in  music,  that  the  kings  of  Scotland  and  Wales 
came  thence  to  Ireland  to  look  for  harpers  and  minstrels  to  take 
back  with  them,  to  be  the  pride  and  honor  of  their  courts.  And 
the  students  who  came  from  all  the  ends  of  the  earth  to  study 
in  the  colleges  and  schools  of  Ireland,  among  other  things, 
learned  the  music  of  the  land,  and  went  home  to  charm  their 
friends  and  their  fellow-countrymen,  in  Germany,  in  France,  in 
the  north  of  Italy,  with  the  strains  and  the  splendid  tradition 
of  music  that  they  had  learned  in  the  island  that  was  the  mother 
of  song. 

St.  Columba,  or  Columkille,  was  the  head  of  the  bards  in 
Ireland.    At  that  time  so  great  was  the  honor  in  which  the  bards 

ere  held,  that  an  Irish    king  bestowed  the  barony  of  Ross- 


The  National  Music  of  Ireland.  383 

Carberry — a  large  estate,  carrying  with  it  titles  of  nobility — upon 
a  minstrel  harper,  in  return  for  a  glorious  song.  Oh,  how  well 
must  the  bard  have  been  honored,  how  magnificently  and 
grandly  appreciated,  when  the  kings  of  the  land  sought  to  be- 
stow their  highest  dignities  upon  the  child  of  song  !  In  this 
degenerate  age,  if  a  thing  is  worth  scarcely  anything,  our  phrase 
is  "  'tis  scarcely  worth  a  song  !  "  but,  fourteen  hundred  years 
ago,  a  song,  in  Ireland,  if  it  was  well  written,  and  set  to  original 
music,  and  the  harper  could  skillfully  sweep  the  chords  of  his 
lyre,  and  excite  joy  or  pleasure  in  the  heart  of  his  monarch, — 
that  harper  received  a  crown  of  gold,  broad  lands,  and  titles  of 
nobility. 

A  few  years  later,  we  find  that  there  were  twelve  hundred 
masters  of  the  art  of  music  in  Ireland,  and  that  King  Hugh  of 
Ireland  was  so  much  afraid  of  them,  of  their  influence  with 
the  people,  beside  which  his  own  royalty  seemed  to  be  nothing 
— so  deeply  was  music  loved  by  the  people — that  he  became 
jealous,  and  was  about  to  pass  a  decree  for  the  destruction  of 
the  minstrels  wholesale ;  when  St.  Columba,  who  was  far  away 
at  Iona,  hearing  that  his  brother  bards  were  about  to  be 
destroyed,  hastened  from  his  far  northern  island  ;  and  by  his 
powerful  pleading  saved  the  minstrelsy  of  Ireland.  He  was  a 
bard  ;  and  he  pleaded  as  a  bard  for  his  fellow-bards  ;  and  he  suc- 
ceeded. And  well  it  is  said,  that  Ireland  and  Scotland  may 
well  be  grateful  to  the  founder  of  Iona,  who  saved  the  music 
which  is  now  the  brightest  gem  in  the  crown  of  both  lands. 

But  the  piety  and  the  peace  that  shone  upon  the  land  by  the 
glory  of  Ireland's  virtue  in  these  by-gone  days  was  so  manifest, 
that,  as  if  they  knew  it  but  had  no  fear,  the  kings  and  the  chief- 
tains of  the  land  resolved  to  test  it.  From  the  northwest  point 
of  the  island,  a  young  maiden,  radiant  in  beauty,  alone  and  un- 
protected, covered  with  jewels,  set  out  to  travel  throughout  the 
whole  length  of  the  land.  On  the  highway  she  trod  any  hour 
of  the  morning,  mid-day,  and  the  evening;  she  penetrated 
through  the  centre  of  the  island  ;  she  crossed  the  Shannon  ;  she 
swept  the  western  coast  and  came  up  again  to  the  shores  of 
Munster ;  she  penetrated  into  the  heart  of  royal  Tipperary ; 
she  met  her  countrymen  on  every  mile  of  her  road — no  man  of 
Ireland  even  offended  her  by  a  fixed  stare;  no  man  of  Ireland 
addressed  to  her  an  offensive  word  ;    no  hand  of  Ireland  was 


384  The  National  Music  of  Ireland. 

put  forth  to  take  from  her  defenceless  body  one  single  gem  ~>i 
jewel  that  shone  thereon.  The  poet  describes  her  as  meeting 
a  foreign  knight,  a  stranger  from  a  distant  land,  who  came  to 
behold  the  far-famed  glory  of  Catholic  Ireland : — 

"  Rich  and  rare  were  the  gems  she  wore, 
And  a  bright  gold  ring  on  her  wand  she  bore  ; 
But,  oh  !  her  beauty  was  far  beyond 
Her  sparkling  gems  or  snow-white  wand. 

"  '  Lady  !  dost  thou  not  fear  to  stray, 

So  lone  and  so  lovely,  along  this  bleak  way  ? 

Are  Erin's  sons  so  good  or  so  cold, 

As  not  to  be  tempted  by  woman  or  gold  ? ' 

"  '  Sir  Knight !  I  feel  not  the  least  alarm, 
No  son  of  Erin  will  offer  me  harm  : 
For  though  they  love  woman  and  golden  store, 
Sir  Knight !  they  love  honor  and  virtue  more.' 

"  On  she  went,  and  her  maiden  smile, 
In  safety  lighted  her  round  the  Green  Isle  ; 
And  blest  for  ever  is  she  who  relied 
On  Erin's  honor,  and  Erin's  pride." 

This  vision  of  historic  loveliness  and  glory  was  rudely  shat- 
tered and  broken  by  the  Danish  invasion  at  the  end  of  the 
eighth  century.  The  Danes  landed  on  the  coast  of  Wexford, 
and  the  fate  of  the  country  was  imperilled  ;  the  religion  of  the 
country  was  threatened  ;  the  piety  of  the  country  almost  ex- 
tinguished ;  and,  for  three  hundred  years,  the  question  was  one 
of  national  existence.  In  every  field  of  the  land  the  blood  of  the 
people  flowed  like  water.  For  instance,  when  the  Danes  and 
the  Irish  met  in  the  county  of  Wicklow,  they  encountered  each 
other  near  the  "  sweet  Vale  of  Avoca."  The  battle  began  at  six 
o'clock  in  tne  morning :  it  lasted  till  nightfall.  The  rivers  flowed 
red  with  blood  ;  but  when  the  sun  was  setting,  and  the  Irish 
standard  of  green,  was  flung  out,  the  Gael  were  victorious,  and 
six  thousand  dead  bodies  of  the  Danes  covered  the  Vale  of 
Glenamana.  Something  more  glorious  even  than  the  tender 
reminiscences  of  our  national  poet  is  the  recall  of  the  victory 
which  was  gained  there.     He  praises  the  vale  for  its  beauty: — 

"  There  is  not  in  this  wide  world  a  valley  so  sweet 
As  the  vale  in  whose  bosom  the  bright  waters  meet  ; 
Oh !  the  last  rays  of  feeling  and  life  must  depart, 
Ere  the  bloom  of  that  valley  shall  fade  from  my  heart." 


The  National  Music  of  Ireland.  3S5 

Rut  it  is  not  "  the  beauty  that  nature  has  shed  o'er  the  scene" 
that  is  its  grandest  reminiscence  :  it  is  the  battle  fought  in  that 
neighboring  vale,  which  saw  the  glorious  King  Malachi  the 
Second  return  victorious,  wearing 

"  The  collar  of  gold, 
Which  he  won  from  the  proud  invader," 

the  evening  that  saw  the  laurels  of  Wicklow  sprinkled  with  the 
red  blood  of  the  Danish  foe.     For,  as  the  poet  says, — 

"  Less  dear  the  laurel  growing, 
Alive,  untouch'd,  and  blowing, 

Than  that  whose  braid 

Is  pluck'd  to  shade 
The  brows  with  victory  glowing. 

Yet,  although  the  future  was  so  grievously  imperilled — although 
so  many  interests  were  threatened  with  destruction — yet  Ireland, 
during  these  three  hundred  years  of  Danish  war,  kept  her  music. 
Her  bards  were  in  the  battle-fields  ;  and  often  the  sound  of  the 
harp  mingled  with  the  cry  of  the  combatants  ;  and  often  the  hand 
that  "  smote  down  the  Dane,"  like  that  of  the  glorious  king 
who  fell  at  Clontarf, — Brian  Boroimhe, — was  a  hand  that  could 
not  only  draw  the  sword  and  wield  it,  but  could  sweep  the  harp, 
and  bring  forth  from  its  chords  of  silver  or  of  gold  the  genius 
and  the  tenderness  of  Irish  song.  We  can  well  imagine  on  the 
field  of  Clontarf,  when  Brian  went  forth  to  the  battle,  the  chief 
of  his  bards,  Mac  Liag,  accompanying  him  to  the  field,  going 
before  him  as  he  reviewed  his  army,  and  bringing  forth  with 
trembling  fingers  the  spirit  of  the  national  music,  which  braced 
the  arms  of  the  hero.  That  minstrel  had  to  take  back  with 
him  the  dead  body  of  his  aged  and  loved  master ;  and  he  lifted 
up  his  voice  in  a  song,  the  sweetest  and  most  tender,  yet  most 
manly  expression  of  the  grief  of  the  friend  and  servant,  as  he  sat 
in  the  deserted  halls  of  Kincora,  and  filled  it  with  his  lamenta- 
tion over  the  body  of  Ireland's  greatest  king.  He  told  the  nation 
to  remember  his  glories,  and  the  bards  to  fling  out  the  name  of 
Brian  as  the  strongest  argument  of  bravery. 

"  Remember  the  glories  of  Brian  the  Brave, 
Though  the  days  of  the  hero  are  o'er ; 
Though  lost  to  Mononia,  and  cold  in  the  grave. 
He  returns  to  Kincora  no  more. 
25 


386  The  National  Music  of  Ireland 

The  star  of  the  field,  which  so  often  hath  poured 

It's  beam  o'er  the  battle,  is  set ; 
But  enough  of  its  glory  remains  on  each  sword, 

To  light  us  to  victory  yet. 

"  Mononia  !  when  Nature  embellish'd  each  tint 

Of  thy  fields  and  thy  mountains  so  fair, — 
Did  she  ever  intend  that  a  tyrant  should  print 

The  footstep  of  slavery  there  ? 
No  !  Freedom,  whose  smile  we  shall  never  resign, 

Go,  tell  our  invaders,  the  Danes, 
That  'tis  sweeter  to  bleed  for  an  age  at  thy  shrine, 

Than  to  sleep  but  a  moment  in  chains." 

Brian  passed  to  his  honored  grave,  and  to  the  immortality  of 
his  Irish  human  fame;  and,  with  his  lips  upon  the  crucifix,  he 
sent  forth  his  spirit  to  God.  The  unhappy  year,  1168,  came,  and 
brought  with  it  the  curse  of  Ireland,  in  the  first  cause  of  thfr 
English  invasion.  Bear  with  me,  ye  maidens  and  mothers  of 
Ireland:  bear  with  me  when  I  tell  you  that  this  curse  was 
brought  upon  us  by  an  Irishwoman ;  and  I  would  not  mention 
her,  save  that  in  all  history  she  is  the  only  daughter  of  Ireland 
who  ever  fixed  a  stain  on  the  fair  fame  of  our  womanhood.  She 
was  an  Irish  princess,  named  Dearbhorgal,  who  was  married  to 
O'Ruark,  Prince  of  Breffni,  but  eloped  with  Dermod  Mac- 
Murchad,  King  of  Leinster.  O'Ruark,  at  the  time,  was  absent 
upon  a  religious  pilgrimage  of  devotion.  His  return  to  his  aban- 
doned home,,  and  his  despair,  are  commemorated  in  song.  The 
whole  nation  was  roused,  and  the  unhappy  Dearbhorgil  and  her 
paramour,  the  King  of  Leinster,  were  banished  from  the  Irish 
soil.  Why?  Because,  with  her  traditions  of  fame  and  glory, 
there  was  no  room  on  the  soil  of  Ireland  for  the  adulterous  man 
or  for  the  faithless  woman.  Thus  driven  forth,  MacMurchad  in- 
voked the  aid  of  Henry  II.  to  reinstate  him  ;  and  in  the  year 
.1169  that  monarch  sent  over  an  English,  or  rather  a  Norman, 
army ;  they  set  foot  upon  Ireland,  and  there  they  are,  unfor- 
tunately, to-day.  From  that  hour  to  this,  the  history  of  Ireland 
is  written  in  tears  and  blood.  On  returning,  his  thoughts  full 
of  God,  O'Ruark  sees  the  towers  of  his  castle  rise  before  him. 
The  poet  thus  describes  his  emotion  : 

"  The  valley  lay  smiling  before  Tie, 
Where  so  lately  I  left  her  behind  ; 
Yet  I  trembled,  and  something  hung  o'er  me, 
That  saddened  the  joy  of  my  mind. 


The  National  Music  of  Ireland.  387 

I  looked  for  the  lamp,  which  she  told  me 

Should  shine  when  her  pilgrim  returned  ; 
But,  though  darkness  began  to  enfold  me, 

No  lamp  from  the  battlements  burned. 

I  flew  to  her  chamber  ;  'twas  lonely, 

As  if  the  loved  tenant  lay  dead  ! 
Ah  !  would  it  were  death,  and  death  only  ! 

But  ao,  the  young  false  one  had  fled*! 
And  there  hung  the  lute,  that  could  soften 

My  very  worst  pain  into  bliss  ; 
While  the  hand  that  had  waked  it  so  often 

Now  throbbed  to  a  proud  rival's  kiss. 

'There  was  a  time,  falsest  of  women, 

When  Breffni's  good  sword  would  have  sought 
That  man,  through  a  million  of  foemen, 

Who  dared  but  to  doubt  thee  in  thought 
While  now — oh,  degenerate  daughter 

Of  Erin,  how  fallen's  thy  fame  ! 
Through  ages  of  bondage  and  slaughter 

Thy  country  shall  bleed  for  thy  shamr 

Already  the  curse  is  upon  her, 

And  strangers  her  valleys  profane; 
They  come  to  divide,  to  dishonor, 

And  tyrants  they  long  will  remain. 
But,  onward  !  the  green  banner  rearing  ; 

Go,  flesh  every  sword  to  the  hilt ; 
On  our  side  is  virtue  and  Erin, 

On  theirs  is  the  Saxon  and  guilt." 

The  war — the  sacred  war — began.  We  know  that  for  foui 
hundred  sad  years  that  war  was  carried  on,  with  varying  success. 
In  many  a  field  was  it  well  fought  and  well  defended — this  cause 
of  Ireland's  national  independence.  Many  a  man,  glorious  in 
her  history,  wrote  his  name  upon  its  annals  with  the  point  of  a 
sword  dripping  with  Saxon  blood.  Yet  the  cause  was  a  losing 
one,  though  not  a  lost  one.  Well  might  Ireland's  patriots  weep 
when  they  saw  division  in  the  camp  and  division  in  the  coun- 
cil ;  when  they  saw  the  brightest  names  in  Ireland's  history 
going  to  look  for  Norman  honors — to  sink  the  proud  names  of 
O'Brien,  O'Neill,  or  O'Donnell  in  the  vain  title  of  the  Earl  of 
this,  or  the  Earl  of  that.  Well  might  the  impassioned  minstrel 
exclaim,  in  the  agony  of  the  thought  that,  perhaps,  Ireland  was 
never  more  to  be  a  nation : 


388  The  National  Music  of  Ireland. 

14  Oh,  for  the  swords  of  former  time  ! 

Oh,  for  the  men  who  bore  them  ! 
When,  armed  for  Right,  they  stood  sublime, 

And  tyrants  crouched  before  them  ; 
When  pure  yet,  ere  courts  began 

With  honors  to  enslave  him, 
The  noblest  honors  worn  by  man 

Were  those  which  virtue  gave  him." 

How  fared  it  with  the  bards  during  this  long-protracted 
agony  of  national  woe  ?  They  still  animated  the  hopes  of  the 
nation ;  they  still  made  their  appeals  to  the  Irish  heart ;  they 
still  made  the  pulse  of  the  nation  throb  again  to  the  sound 
of  their  glorious  harps.  Spenser,  the  English  poet,  reproached 
them,  because  they  sang  only  of  love.  Alas  !  they  had  scarcely 
any  other  subject  left  them.  The  time  of  national  glory — of 
national  prosperity — was  gone.  They  were  the  voice  of  an 
oppressed  and  down-trodden  people,  therefore  did  the  Irish 
bard  answer : 

"  Oh,  Uame  not  the  bard,  if  he  fly  to  the  bowers 

Where  pleasure  lies  carelessly  smiling  at  fame  ; 
He  was  born  for  much  more,  and,  in  happier  hours, 

His  soul  might  have  burned  with  a  holier  flame. 
The  string  which  now  languishes  loose  o'er  the  lyre, 

Might  have  bent  a  proud  bow  to  the  warrior's  dart ; 
And  the  lip  which  now  breathes  but  the  song  of  desire, 

Might  have  poured  the  full  tide  of  a  patriot's  heart." 

Yes  ;  they  did  not  content  themselves,  these  bards,  with  merely 
animating  the  national  purpose,  and  thrilling  and  rousing  the 
national  heart  and  courage.  They  did  more.  In  the  day  of 
battle  and  danger,  when  they  sounded  the  tocsin  for  the  war 
and  for  the  fight,  then  the  bards  that  could  have  awakened,  and 
did  awaken,  the  tenderest  strains  of  song,  were  foremost  in  the 
battle-field,  fighting  for  Erin.  It  is  more  than  an  Idle  tradition, 
that  which  is  embodied  in  the  poet's  verse : 

"  The  minstrel  boy  to  the  war  has  gone  ; 

In  the  ranks  of  death  you'll  find  him  ; 
His  father's  sword  he  has  girded  on, 

And  his  wild  harp  slung  behind  him. 
'  Land  of  song,'  cried  the  warrior  bard, 

*  Though  all  the  world  betrays  thee, 
One  sword,  at  least,  thy  rights  shall  guard, 

One  faithful  harp  shall  praise  thee.' 


The  National  Music  of  Ireland.  389 

"The  minstrel  fell,  but  the  foeman's  chain 
Could  not  bring  his  proud  soul  under, 
The  harp  he  loved  ne'er  spoke  again, 

For  he  tore  its  chords  asunder  ; 
And  said,  '  No  chains  shall  sully  thee, 

Thou  soul  of  love  and  bravery  ! 
Thy  songs  were  made  for  the  pure  and  free, 
They  shall  never  sound  in  slavery.' " 

From  the  day  that  the  Norman  invader  first  set  foot  on  the 
soil  of  Ireland — we  have  the  testimony  of  history  for  it;  the 
Irish  bards  and  minstrels — Irish  to  their  heart's  core — were  in 
the  habit  of  coming  into  the  English  camp,  and  playing  their 
national  Irish  airs.  The  English  knew  that  these  men  were 
their  enemies  ;  they  had  orders  from  the  king  to  arrest  any 
harper  that  came  into  the  camp,  because  they  came  only  as  spies, 
to  find  out  the  strength  and  disposition  of  their  forces  ;  yet, 
O  glory  of  Ireland  !  so  sweet  was  the  performance  of  these  men, 
so  melodious  their  music,  that,  in  spite  of  the  royal  decrees,  the 
English  soldiers,  officers,  and  generals,  used  to  go  out  to  look 
for  these  harpers  and  bring  them  into  the  camp.  Giraldus 
Cambrensis,  who  wrote  a  History  of  Ireland — was  obliged  to 
admit  there  was  no  such  music  heard  in  the  world.  "  This 
people,  however,"  he  says,  "  deserves  to  be  praised  for  their  suc- 
cessful cultivation  of  music,  in  which  their  skill  is  beyond  com- 
parison superior  to  that  of  every  nation  we  have  seen."  The 
statutes  of  Kilkenny  in  1367,  forbade  the  Irish  minstrels  to 
enter  the  English  pale,  and  made  it  penal  to  give  them  shelter 
or  entertainment ;  and  yet  King  Henry  the  Sixth  complains  that 
his  Irish  subjects  persist  in  paying  "  grandia  bona  et  dona," 
great  gifts  and  offerings,  in  exchange  for  Irish  music,  and  so  he 
ordered  his  marshal  in  Ireland,  to  imprison  all  the  harpers  he 
could  lay  hands  on.  Queen  Elizabeth,  following  in  the  foot- 
steps of  her  holy  and  accomplished  father,  imitating  him  in 
everything,  even  in  her  immaculate  purity,  passed  another  law. 
She  said,  "We  never  can  conquer  Ireland  and  we  can  never 
make  Ireland  Protestant  as  long  as  the  minstrels  are  there  ;" 
and  she  passed  a  law  that  they  were  all  to  be  hung:  and  there 
was  a  certain  lord  in  her  court,  with,  I  regret  to  say,  an  Irish 
title,  my  Lord  Barrymore,  who  promised  to  do  this ;  and  was 
appointed,  and  took  out  a  commission  to  hang  every  man  that 
was  a  harper.     Why?     Because  the  same  spirit  by  which  the 


390  The  National  Music  of  Ireland. 

bard  and  minstrel  had  kept  the  nation  up  to  its  national  contest, 
now  turned  its  attention  to  the  other  element  of  discord,  and 
when  the  national  war  became  a  religious  war,  the  bard  proved 
as  Catholic  as  he  was  Irish. 

There  are  two  ideas  in  the  mind  of  every  true  Irishman,  and 
these  two  ideas  England  never  was  able  to  root  out  of  the  land, 
nor  out  of  the  intellect,  nor  out  of  the  hearts  of  the  Irish  people. 
And  these  two  ideas  are  :  Ireland  is  a  Nation.  That  is  num- 
ber one.  Ireland  is  a  Catholic  Nation  ;  and  so  will  she 
remain.  Plundered  of  our  property,  they  made  us  poor.  We 
preferred  poverty  rather  than  deny  our  religion,  and  become 
renegades  to  God.  Our  schools  were  taken  from  us,  and  they 
thought  they  could  reduce  us  thereby  to  a  state  of  beastly 
ignorance.  They  made  it  a  crime  for  an  Irishman  to  teach  his 
son  how  to  read.  Our  religion  kept  us  enlightened  in  spite  of 
them.  England  never,  never  succeeded  in  affixing  the  stain  of 
degradation  and  ignorance  upon  the  Irish  people.  They  robbed 
us  of  liberty  as  well  as  of  property  ;  they  robbed  us  of  life  ;  they 
took  the  best  sons  of  the  land,  and  slaughtered  them ;  they  took 
the  holy  priests  from  the  altars,  and  slaughtered  them  ;  they  took 
our  bishops,  the  glorious  men  of  old,  and  slew  them.  When 
Ireton  entered  Limerick,  he  found  O'Brien,  the  Bishop  of  Emly 
— a  saint  of  God — found  him  there,  where  an  Irish  bishop  ought 
to  be,  in  the  midst  of  his  people,  rallying  them  to  the  fight, 
sending  them  into  the  breach  again  and  again.  They  took 
O'Brien,  the  Irish  bishop,  brought  him  into  the  open  street,  be- 
fore his  people,  and  they  slaughtered  him,  as  a  butcher  would 
slaughter  a  beast.  They  took  Bishop  O'Hurley,  and  brought 
him  to  Stephen's  Green,  in  Dublin,  and  there  tied  him  to  a 
stake,  and  roasted  him  to  death  at  a  slow  fire.  They  took  six 
hundred  of  my  own  brave  brethren — Dominicans — brave,  true 
men,  Irishmen  all.  Elizabeth  of  England,  wherever  you  are  to- 
night, I  believe  you  have  the  blood  of  these  six  hundred  priests 
upon  you — all  except  four  !  There  were  only  four  left  !  Think 
of  this  !  They  thought  that  when  an  Irishman  was  completely 
crushed,  he  ought  to  buy  at  least  an  acre  of  land,  the  land  that 
belonged  to  him,  or  a  morsel  of  bread  to  feed  his  family,  by 
becoming  a  Protestant.  The  Irish — men  and  women — declaved 
that  their  religion  and  their  faith  was  dearer  to  them  than  their 
lives.   The  Irish  peasant  man — pure,  strong,  warlike,  determined, 


The  National  Music  of  Ireland.  391 

high  minded,  true  to  his  God,  true  to  his  native  land,  true  to  his 
fellow-men,  knelt  down  before  the  ruined  shrine  of  the  Catholic 
Church  that  he  loved,  and  to  that  Church  he  said  : 

•  Through  grief  and  through  danger  thy  smile  hath  cheered  my  way, 
Till  hope  seemed  to  bud  from  each  thorn  that  round  me  lay ; 
The  darker  our  fortune,  the  brighter  our  pure  love  burned, 
Till  shame  into  glory,  till  fear  into  zeal  was  turned. 
Yes,  slave  as  I  was,  in  thine  arms  my  spirit  felt  free, 
And  bless'd  even  the  sorrows  that  made  me  more  dear  to  thee. 

"  Thy  rival  was  honored,  while  thou  wert  wronged  and  scorned ; 
Thy  crown  was  of  briars,  while  gold  her  brows  adorned  ; 
She  wooed  me  to  temples,  while  thou  lay'st  hid  in  caves ; 
Her  friends  were  all  masters,  while  thine,  alas !  were  slaves. 
Yet  cold  in  the  earth,  at  thy  feet,  I  would  rather  be, 
Than  wed  what  I  love  not,  or  turn  one  thought  from  thee." 

All  this  time  England  recognized  in  the  Irish  bards,  not  only 
the  enemies  of  her  dominion,  which  would  fain  extinguish  the 
nationality  of  Ireland,  but,  still  more,  the  enemies  of  her  reform- 
ed Protestant  religion,  which  would  rob  Ireland  of  her  ancient 
faith,  which  she  received  from  her  Apostle.  The  bards  lived  on, 
however.  In  spite  of  Henry  VIII.,  in  spite  of  Elizabeth,  and  in 
spite  of  my  Lord  Barrymore,  who  took  the  contract,  as  hangman, 
to  dispose  of  them,  they  lived  on  down  to  the  time  of  Carolan, 
who  died  in  1738 ;  and  we  have  in  Jameison's  letters  from  Scot- 
land the  testimony  of  a  man  who  says,  that  the  Scotch,  in  the 
memory  of  living  men  in  his  time,  used  to  go  over  to  Ireland 
to  study  music.  Handel,  the  great  composer,  one  of  the  greatest 
giants  of  modern  song,  went  over  to  London  ;  he  was  coldly  re- 
ceived. He  went  from  England  to  stay  in  Dublin,  where  he 
was  so  warmly  received,  and  found  every  note  of  his  music  so 
thoroughly  appreciated,  that  he  immediately  set  to  work  and 
wrote  that  immortal  work — the  Oratorio  of  the  Messiah,  under 
the  inspiration  of  an  Irish  welcome.  This  grandest  of  all 
modern  pieces  was  first  brought  out  in  Dublin,  before  an  Irish 
audience. 

Carolan,  the  last  of  the  bards,  died  but  a  few  years  before 
Moore  was  boin.  It  seemed  as  if  the  last  star  in  the  firmament 
of  Ii  eland's  bards  had  set.     It  seemed  indeed  as  if 

"The  harp  that  once  through  Tara's  halls. 
The  soul  of  music  shed, 
Now  hung  as  mute  on  Tara's  walls 
As  if  that  soul  were  fled." 


392  The  National  Music  of  Ireland. 

But  that  star  of  Ireland's  song,  Tom  Moore,  greatest  of  Ireland's 
modern  poets,  immortalized  himself  as  well  as  the  songs  of  his 
country  in  his  famous  Irish  Melodies.  Where  have  you  ever 
heard  such  simple  yet  entrancing  melodies.  The  greatest  men 
among  modern  composers  have  a  knowledge  that  this  music  has 
a  melody  of  its  own  which  cannot  be  equalled.  Some  of  these 
melodies  are  as  ancient  as  Ireland's  Christianity  ;  others  are  said 
to  date  from  remote  pagan  times.  So  fair  and  beautiful  is  the 
melody  of  "  Eileen  a  Roon,"  which  was  composed  in  the  thir- 
teenth century,  by  the  minstrel  O'Daly,  that  the  immortal 
Handel  declared  he  would  rather  be  the  author  of  that  simple 
melody  than  of  all  the  works  that  ever  came  from  his  pen  or 
from  his  mind.  They  are  sung  in  every  land.  They  are  admired 
wherever  the  influence  of  music  extends.  Even  in  our  own 
modern  times,  they  have  softened  and  prepared  the  English 
mind  to  grant  us  Catholic  Emancipation.  Of  course  the  most 
powerful  motive  of  that  measure,  as  experience  has  proved,  was 
fear.  That  is  the  principal  motive  for  any  concession  we  receive 
from  England.  But  certain  it  is  that  the  Irish  songs  and  melodies 
of  the  old  Irish  bards  popularized  the  Irish  character  in  England, 
and  enabled  us  the  more  easily  to  gain  that  which  was  wrung 
from  England's  king  and  England,  through  the  sympathy  that 
was  created  by  Moore's  melodies.  Hence  it  is  that  he  himself 
expresses  the  anguish  yet  the  hope  of  the  bard — 

"  But,  tho'  glory  be  gone,  and  though  hope  fade  away, 

Thy  name,  loved  Erin  !  shall  live  in  his  songs  ; 
Not  even  in  the  hour  when  his  heart  is  most  gay, 

Will  he  lose  the  remembrance  of  thee  and  thy  wrongs. 
The  stranger  shall  hear  thy  lament  on  his  plains  ; 

The  sigh  of  thy  harp  shall  be  sent  o'er  the  deep, 
Till  thy  masters  themselves,  as  they  rivet  thy  chains, 

Shall  pause  at  the  song  of  their  captive,  and  weep  ! " 

Music  is  the  most  spiritual  of  all  human  enjoyments.  The 
pleasures  of  the  taste  are  gross ;  the  pleasures  of  the  eye  are 
dangerous  ;  the  pleasures  of  the  ear,  the  delight  of  listening  to 
strains  of  sweet  song,  is  at  once  the  most  entrancing  and  least 
dangerous  of  all  the  pleasures  of  sense.  You  may  enjoy  most 
the  pleasure  of  music  without  sensuality — it  is  scarcely  capa- 
ble of  exciting  any  undue  emotion  of  the  heart  or  temptation  of 
the  mind.     Nay  more — we  know  from  the  Scriptures  that  music 


The  National  Music  of  Ireland.  393 

that  song,  is  the  native  language  of  heaven,  as  it  is  the  natural 
and  untaught  expressioi.  of  man  upon  the  earth.  We  know,  that 
as  music  recalls  the  most  vivid  and  tender  recollections  of  earth, 
so  that  the  dead  start  from  their  graves' and  throng  once  more 
the  halls  of  memory  at  the  sound  of  the  well-known  song,  so  also 
we  know  the  joy  of  even  the  blessed  angels  of  God  is  expressed 
in  the  language  of  Divine  and  celestial  song.  It  was  a  theory  of 
old  that  the  very  spheres  moved  to  a  grand  harmony  of  their 
own,  whereupon  our  national  bard  sang — 

"  Sing — sing — music  was  given 
To  brighten  the  gay  and  kindle  the  loving  ; 

Souls  here — like  planets  in  heaven — 
By  harmony's  laws  alone  are  kept  moving." 

But  that  which  is  a  simple  theory  of  the  spheres  of  the  lower 
firmament,  is  to  be  received  as  a  reality  when  we  regard  the 
harmony  of  the  Divine  sphere  of  heaven.  There  the  angels 
sing  the  praises  of  God — there  the  air  of  heaven  is  resonant  with 
cries  of  joy,  with  the  sweet  concord  of  many  sounds,  mingled 
with  the  angelic  harpers  upon  their  harps.  Oh,  let  us  hope  that 
as  we,  as  a  nation,  have  the  privilege  amongst  the  nations  to 
hold  in  our  national  melodies  the  sweetest  and  tenderest  strains 
of  human  song,  so  may  we,  as  children  of  that  nation  and  land 
of  song,  carry  our  taste  with  us  into  the  field  of  the  purest  of 
melodies,  and  that  those  who  sang  best  upon  earth  may  sing 
best  in  the  courts  of  God.  In  vain  would  Ireland's  song  be  the 
brightest  of  all  earthly  melody,  unless  that  song  were  to  be 
perpetuated  in  the  higher  echoes  and  grander  melodies  of 
heaven.  Have  we  not  reason  to  believe  those  bards  and  heroes 
who  stood  in  the  hour  of  battle  and  danger  and  difficulty  for 
their  home  and  their  national  liberty,  for  God  and  their  native 
land,  and  died  for  it,  have  we  not  good  reason  to  believe  that 
these  children  of  song  have  joined  the  higher  and  celestial  choir? 
Yes,  Ireland's  minstrels  sang  the  apostolic  song  of  faith,  the 
virgin  song  from  the  lips  of  the  holy  St.  Bridget — the  song  of 
the  holy,  pure,  stainless  daughters  of  Erin,  who  are  now,  as  in 
days  past,  our  joy  and  glory ;  their  song  was  the  sweetest  on 
earth,  and  I  have  no  doubt  will  be  the  sweetest  in  heaven.  Let 
us,  therefore,  cling  to  the  loved  old  land  that  made  heroes  of 
them,  to  the  love  of  our  old  religion  that  made  saints  of  them 


394  The  National  Music  of  Ireland. 

let  us  remember  that  every  Irishman,  all  the  world  over,  and 
every  son  of  an  Irishman,  and  every  grandson  of  an  Irishman — 
has  that  blood  in  his  veins  which  brings  to  him  the  re- 
sponsibility and  the  tradition  of  fifteen  hundred  years  of  national, 
as  well  as  religious  glory ;  the  responsibility  through  which  our 
fathers  from  their  graves  appeal  to  us  for  God  and  for  Erin  ; 
the  noblest,  the  best  blood  in  which  a  pure  nationality,  always 
preserved  and  left  distinct,  is  sanctified  by  the  highest  purity 
of  an  unchanged  and  unchanging  faith.  That  is  the  glory  of 
every  Irishman  in  the  world :  and  it  brings  a  responsibility ;  for 
such  a  man  is  obliged,  beyond  all  other  men,  to  live  up  to  these 
traditions,  and  show  that  he  is  no  degenerate  scion  of  such  a 
race.  I  have  come  here  amongst  you,  and  on  my  return  to 
Ireland,  I  will  bear  in  my  heart  the  joy  and  on  my  lips  the  glad 
message  that  you,  my  friends,  are  no  degenerate  sons  of  Ireland. 
I  will  bring  home  to  cheer  the  saddened  hearts  at  home — I  will 
bring  home  to  gladden  the  expectant  hearts  at  home,  the  good 
and  the  manly  and  the  glorious  message,  that  I  have  met  thous- 
ands and  thousands  of  Irishmen  in  America ;  but  that,  amid  all 
the  rising  glories  of  their  new  country,  I  have  not  met  one  who 
had  forgotten  his  love  or  his  affection  for  the  land  of  his  birth. 
If  such  a  one  there  be,  if  such  an  Irishman  exist,  so  forgetful 
of  the  history,  so  dead  to  the  glory  of  his  native  land,  as  to  be 
ashamed  of  being  an  Irishman,  if  such  a  man  be  in  existence 
in  this  country — he  has  spared  me  the  pain,  the  humiliation, 
and  the  disgust  of  showing  himself  to  me. 

And  now,  my  friends,  having  invited  your  attention  to  the 
subject  of  Ireland's  national  music,  let  me  wind  up  with  one  or 
two  reflections  similar  to  those  with  which  I  began.  Irish  song 
has  played  a  large  part  not  only  in  the  strengthening  of  Ireland's 
sons,  but  also  in  the  conciliation  of  Ireland's  most  bitter  ene- 
mies. Although  Moore  made  every  true  heart  and  every  true 
and  noble  mind  in  the  world  melt  into  sorrow  at  the  contempla- 
tion of  Ireland's  wrongs,  and  the  injustice  that  she  suffered,  as 
they  came  home  to  every  sympathetic  heart  upon  the  wings  of 
Ireland's  ancient  melody — yet  he  said  to  the  harp  of  his  coun- 
try: 

"  Go  sleep  with  the  sunshine  of  fame  on  thy  slumbers, 
Till  waked  by  some  hand  less  unworthy  than  mine." 

A  hand  less  unworthy  came — a  hand    less   unworthy  than 


The  National  Music  oj  Ireland.  395 

Thomas  Moore's — a  hand  more  loyal  and  true  than  even  his 
was — when  in  Ireland's  lays  appeared  the  immortal  Thomas 
Davis.  He  and  the  men  whose  hearts  beat  with  such  high  hope 
for  Young  Ireland — seized  the  sad,  silent  harp  of  Erin,  and  sent 
forth  another  thrill  in  the  invitation  to  the  men  of  the  North 
to  join  hands  with  their  Catholic  brethren — to  the  men  of  the 
South  to  remember  the  ancient  glories  of  "  Brian  the  Brave." 
To  the  men  of  Connaught,  he  seemed  to  call  forth  Roderick 
O'Conor  from  his  grave  at  Clonmacnoise.  He  rallied  Ireland 
in  that  year  so  memorable  for  its  hopes  and  for  the  blighting  of 
those  hopes.  He  and  the  men  of  the  Nation  did  what  this  world 
has  never  seen  in  the  same  space  of  time,  by  the  sheer  power  of 
Irish  genius,  by  the  sheer  strength  of  Young  Ireland's  intellect, 
the  Nation  of  '43  created  a  national  poetry,  a  national  literature, 
which  no  other  country  can  equal.  Under  the  magic  voices  and 
pens  of  these  men,  every  ancient  glory  of  Ireland  stood  forth 
again.  I  remember  it  well.  I  was  but  a  boy  at  the  time  ;  but 
I  remember  with  what  startled  enthusiasm  I  would  arise  from 
reading  "  Davis's  Poems  ;"  and  it  would  seem  to  me  that  before 
my  young  eyes  I  saw  the  dash  of  the  Brigade  at  Fontenoy. 
It  would  seem  to  me  as  if  my  young  ears  were  filled  with  the 
shout  that  resounded  at  the  Yellow  Ford  and  Benburb — the 
war  cry  of  the  Red  Hand,  Uti).  De<vr3  *•*>« — as  the  English 
hosts  were  swept  away,  and,  like  snow  under  the  beams  of  the 
hot  sun,  melted  away  before  the  Irish  onset.  The  dream  of 
the  poet — the  aspiration  of  the  true  Irish  heart — is  yet  unful. 
filled.  But  remember,  that  there  is  something  sacred  in  the 
poet's  dream.  The  inspiration  of  genius  is  second  only  to  the 
inspiration  of  religion.  There  is  something  sacred  and  infalli- 
ble— with  all  our  human  fallibility — in  the  hope  of  a  nation  that 
has  never  allowed  the  hope  of  freedom  to  be  extinguished. 
For  many  a  long  year,  day  and  night,  the  sacred  fire  that  was 
enkindled  before  St.  Bridget's  shrine,  at  Kildare,  was  fed,  and 
sent  its  pure  flame  up  to  heaven.  The  day  came  when  that  fire 
was  extinguished.  But  the  fire  that  has  burned  for  nearly  a 
thousand  years  upon  the  altar  of  Ireland's  nationality,  fed  with 
the  people's  hopes,  fed  with  the  people's  prayers,  that  fire  has 
never  been  extinguished,  even  though  torrents  of  the  nation's 
blood  were  poured  out  upon  it ;  that  fire  burns  to-day ;  and 
that  fire  will  yet  illumine  Ireland. 


396  The  National  Music  of  Ireland. 

I  will  conclude  with  one  word.  Even  as  King  Lir's  lonely 
daughter,  Fionnuala,  sighed  for  the  beaming  of  the  day-star,  so 
do  I  sigh.  When  shall  that  day-star  of  freedom,  mildly  spring- 
ing, light  and  warm  our  isle  with  peace  and  love  ?  When  shall 
the  bell  of  sacred  liberty  ringing,  call  every  Irish  heart  from  out 
the  grave  of  slavery — from  out  the  long,  miserable  night  of  ser- 
vitude— to  walk  in  the  full  blaze  of  our  national  freedom  and 
our  national  glory?  Oh,  may  it  come !  O  God,  make  our  cause 
thy  cause  !  I  speak  as  a  priest  as  well  as  an  Irishman  ;  I  claim, 
in  my  prayer,  to  that  God  to  whom  my  people  have  been  so 
faithful — to  give  us  not  only  that  crown  of  eternity  to  which  we 
look  forward  in  the  Christian's  hope — but,  Oh,  to  give  us,  in 
His  justice,  that  crown  of  national  liberty  and  glory  to  which 
we  have  established  our  right  by  so  many  ages  of  fidelity. 


THE  RESURRECTION. 


And  when  the  Sabbath  was  past,  Mary  Magdalene,  and  Mary,  the  mother  cf 
James  and  Silome,  bought  sweet  spices,  that,  coming,  they  might  anoint  Jesus.  And 
Tery  early  in  the  morning,  the  first  day  of  the  week,  they  came  to  the  sepulchre,  the 
ran  being  now  risen.  And  they  said  one  to  another,  Who  shall  roll  us  back  the 
itone  from  the  door  of  the  sepulchre  ?  And,  looking,  they  saw  the  stone  rolled  back  ; 
for  it  was  very  great.  And  entering  into  the  sepulchre  they  saw  a  young  man  sitting 
on  the  right  side,  clothed  with  a  white  robe.  And  they  were  astonished.  And  he 
said  to  them:  Be  not  affrighted.  You  seek  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  who  was  crucified.  He 
is  risen,  He  is  not  here.  Behold  the  place  where  they  laid  Him.  But,  go  ;  tell  His 
disciples,  and  Peter,  that  He  goeth  before  you  into  Galilee.  There  you  shall  see  Him, 
as  He  told  you." 


m  EARLY  BELOVED  BRETHREN  :— We  are  told,  in 
the  history  of  the  Passion  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
which  we  have  been  considering  during  the  past  few  days 
— that  after  our  Saviour  had  yielded  up  His  spirit  upon 
the  cross,  Joseph  of  Arimathea  went  to  Pilate  and  demanded 
the  body  of  the  Lord.  Pilate  was  surprised  to  hear  that  our 
Divine  Lord  was  already  dead.  And  yet,  if  he  had  only  con- 
sulted his  own  memory,  and  remembered  how  the  life  was 
almost  scourged  out  of  the  Saviour  by  the  hands  of  the  soldiers, 
it  would  not  have  seemed  to  him  so  wonderful  that  the  three 
hours  of  agony  should  have  closed  that  life.  He  sent  to  inquire 
if  He  was  already  dead  ;  and  gave  orders  that,  in  case  He  was 
dead,  Joseph  of  Arimathea  and  Nicodemus  were  to  take  pos- 
session of  His  body.  They  came,  sorrowing,  and  again  climbed 
the  Hill  of  Calvary;  and,  lest  there  might  be  any  doubt  that 
the  Master  was  dead,  the  soldier  drove  his  lance  once  through 
the  heart  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Then  the  body  was  taken 
down  from  the  cross.  They  took  out  the  nails,  gently  and 
tenderly  ;  and  they  handed  them  down   and  they  were  put  into 


398  The  Resurrection. 

the  hands  of  the  Virgin  Mother.  They  took  the  body  reverent- 
ly from  its  high  gibbet,  and  laid  the  thorn-crowned  head  upon 
the  bosom  of  the  Virgin,  who  waited  to  receive  it.  With  her 
own  hands  she  removed  these  thorns  from  His  brow  ;  and  the 
fountain  of  tears,  that  had  been  dried  up  because  of  the  great- 
ness of  her  sorrow,  flows  now,  and  rains  the  Virgin's  tears  upon 
the  stained  and  disfigured  face  of  her  child.  Then  they  brought 
Him  to  a  garden  in  the  neighborhood ;  and  there  they  laid 
Him  in  the  tomb.  It  was  another  man's  grave  ;  and  He,  the 
Lord,  had  no  right  to  it.  But  He  died  so  poor,  that,  even  in 
death,  He  had  no  place  whereon  to  lay  His  head,  until  charity 
opened  another  man's  tomb  for  Him.  There  they  laid  Him 
down  ;  and,  covered  with  blood  and  with  wounds — all  disfigured 
and  deformed,  they  laid  Him  down,  like  the  patriarch  of  old, 
with  a  stone  for  His  pillow  ;  and  upon  that  stone  they  laid  the 
wounded  and  the  blessed  head  of  the  Lord.  They  closed  the 
sepulchre.  Mary,  the  mother,  gathered  up  the  thorns,  the  nails, 
the  instruments  with  which  her  child  was  so  cruelly  maimed 
and  put  to  death ;  and  with  them  pressed  to  her  heart,  and 
leaning  upon  her  newly-found  son.  John,  she  returned  to  her 
sad  home  in  Jerusalem  ;  and  all,  having  adored,  silently  dis- 
persed, for  the  evening  was  coming  that  brought  the  Sabbath. 
One  only  remained.  The  heart-broken  Magdalen  lay  down 
outside  the  tomb,  and  laid  her  head  upon  the  stone  which  they 
had  rolled  against  the  Master's  grave.  There,  she  knew,  He 
lay ;  and  the  instinct  of  her  love,  and  of  her  sorrow,  was  so 
strong  that  she  could  not  go  away  from  the  tomb  of  her  Lord, 
but  remained  there,  weeping  and  alone.  Whilst  she  wept, 
evening  deepened  into  night ;  and,  alone,  the  heart-broken  lover 
of  Jesus  Christ  saw  that  she  must  rise  and  depart.  She  rose. 
She  kissed,  again  and  again,  that  great  stone  that  enclosed  her 
Divine  Saviour ;  and,  turning  to  the  city,  she  heard  the  heavy, 
measured  tread  of  the  soldiers,  who  came  with  the  night  to 
guard  the  tomb.  They  closed  around  the  tomb.  With  rude- 
ness and  with  violence  they  drove  the  woman  away — wondering 
at  her  tears,  and  the  evidence  of  her  broken  heart.  And  then, 
piling  their  arms  and  their  spears,  they  settled  down  to  the  night- 
watch,  cautioned  not  to  sleep — cautioned  to  take  care  not  to  let 
a  human  being  come  near  that  grave  until  the  morning  light. 
Excited  by  their  own  superstitious  fears  and  emotions  (for  it 


The  Resurrection.  399 

was,  indeed,  a  strange  office  for  these  warriors  to  be  set  on 
guard  over  a  dead  man),  agitated  by  the  strangeness  of  their 
position,  excited  by  their  fears,  they  slept  not,  but,  waiting  the 
night,  watchfully,  diligently,  and  with  vigilance,  they  guard  on 
the  right  hand  and  on  the  left ;  scarcely  knowing  who  was  to 
come;  fearing  with  an  undefined  fear;  thinking  that,  perhaps, 
it  was  to  be  a  phantom,  a  spirit,  an  evil  thing  of  the  night 
coming  upon  them  ;  and  ever  ready  to  grasp  their  arms,  and 
put  themselves  on  their  defence. 

The  night  fell,  deep  and  heavy,  over  the  tomb  of  Jesus 
Christ.  The  whole  of  that  night,  and  of  the  following  day,  they 
kept  their  watch.  Mary,  the  mother,  was  in  Jerusalem.  Kneel- 
ing before  these  instruments  of  the  passion,  she  spent  the  whole 
of  that  night,  and  the  whole  of  the  following  Sabbath-day, 
weeping  over  those  thorns  and  over  those  nails ;  contemplating 
them,  examining  them,  and  seeing,  from  the  evidence  of  the 
blood  that  was  upon  them,  how  deeply  they  had  been  struck 
into  the  brow,  and  into  the  hands  and  feet  of  Jesus,  her  divine 
child ;  her  heart  breaking  within  her,  as  every  glance  at  these 
terrible  instruments  of  the  Passion  brought  up  all  the  horrors 
which  she  had  witnessed  on  that  morning  of  Friday,  on  the 
Mount  of  Calvary.  The  women  kept  watch  and  ward  round 
her,  and  so  terrible  was  the  mother's  grief,  that  even  the  Mag- 
dalen was  silenced  and  hushed,  and  dared  not  obtrude  one 
word  of  consolation  upon  the  Virgin's  ear. 

The  Sabbath  passed  away.  Dull  and  heavy  the  black  cloud 
that  had  settled  over  Calvary  and  over  Jerusalem,  was  lifted  up. 
Men  walked  about  with  fear  and  with  trembling.  The  sun 
seemed  to  have  scarely  risen  that  Sabbath  morning.  The  dead 
who  started  from  their  graves  the  moment  Jesus  gave  his  last 
.cry  on  the  cross,  flitted  in  the  darkening  night  to  and  fro  in  the 
silent  streets  of  Jerusalem.  Men  beheld  the  awful  vision  of  these 
skeleton  bodies  that  rose  from  the  grave.  A  fire  of  vengeance 
and  of  fury  seemed  to  glare  in  the  empty  sockets  in  their  heads. 
They  showed  their  white  teeth,  gnashing,  as  it  would  seem,  over 
the  crime  that  the  people  had  committed.  They  flitted  to  and 
fro.  All  Jerusalem  was  filled  with  fear  and  terror.  No  man 
spoke  above  his  breath,  and  all  was  silent  during  that  long  Sab- 
bath day,  that  brought  no  joy,  because  the  people  had  called 
down  the  bl  )od  of  the  Saviour  upon  their  heads.     The  Sabbath 


400  The  Resurrection 

day  and  evening  had  closed  ;  and  again  night  was  recumbent 
upon  the  earth.  The  guard  is  relieved.  Fresh  soldiers  are  put 
at  the  doors.  They  are  again  cautioned  that  this  is  the  impor- 
tant night  when  they  must  watch  with  redoubled  vigilance,  be- 
cause this  night  will  seal  the  Redeemer's  fate.  He  said,  "  I  v\  ill 
rise  again  in  three  days  ;  "  and,  if  the  morning  sun  of  the  first 
day  of  the  week — the  Sunday — rise  upon  the  undisturbed  grave 
of  the  dead  man,  then  all  that  He  has  preached  was  a  lie,  and 
all  the  wonders  that  He  wrought  were  a  deception  upon  the  peo- 
ple. Therefore  the  guards  were  trebly  cautioned  to  keep  watch. 
Then,  filled  with  fear  and  with  an  undefined  alarm,  they  close 
around  the  sepulchre,  resolved  that  so  long  as  hand  of  theirs  can 
wield  a  spear,  no  human  being  shall  approach  that  grave.  The 
Magdalen  lingered  round,  fascinated  by  the  knowledge  that  her 
Redeemer  and  her  Lord  was  there  in  that  tomb  which  she  was 
not  allowed  to  approach.  And  the  guards  watched  patiently, 
vigilantly,  with  sleepless  eyes ;  and  the  night  came  down  and  all 
the  city  was  silent  and  darkened.  Hour  followed  hour.  Slowh 
and  silently  time  rolls  away.  The  night  was  deepening  to  its 
deepest  gloom.  The  midnight  hour  approached.  The  moment 
comes  when  the  third  day  in  the  tomb  is  accomplished.  The 
moment  comes  when  the  Sabbath  was  over — the  Sabbath  of 
which  it  was  written,  that  "  the  Lord  rested  on  the  seventh  day 
from  all  his  works."  That  Sabbath  had  Jesus  Christ  made  ir 
that  dreary,  silent  tomb.  Wounds  and  blood  were  upon  Him 
The  weakness  of  death  had  fastened  upon  Him.  Those  lifelesi 
limbs  cannot  move.  The  sightless  eyes  cannot  open  to  behold 
the  light  of  day.  Death,  indeed,  seems  to  have  rioted  in  its  tri 
umph  over  the  Eternal  Lord  of  Life,  and  hell  appears  victorious 
in  the  destruction  of  the  victim.  The  midnight  hour  approaches 
The  guards  hear  the  rustling  of  the  coming  storm.  They  see 
the  trees  bow  their  heads  in  that  garden,  and  waive  to  and  fro, 
as  by  a  violent  trembling.  They  see  them  bending  as  if  a  storm 
was  sweeping  over  them.  They  look.  What  is  this  orient  light 
that  blushes  upon  the  horizon?  What  is  this  light  which  bursts 
upon  them,  bright,  bright  as  the  sun  of  heaven,  bright  as  ten 
thousand  suns  ?  And  whilst  the  light  flashes  upon  them,  and, 
dazzled,  they  close  their  eyes,  they  hear  a  riot  of  voices  :  "  Gloria 
in  Excclsis !  Alleluia  to  the  risen  Saviour!  "  What  is  this  that 
they  behold?      The  great  stone  comes  rolling  back  from   the 


The  Resurrection.  401 

mouth  of  the  monument  into  the  midst  of  them  !  Save  your- 
selves, O  men !  Save  yourselves  or  it  will  crush  you  !  The 
men  are  frightened  and  alarmed.  Is  it  the  power  of  heaven  ! 
Or  is  it  a  force  from  hell  ?  Presently,  forth  from  that  tomb 
bursts  the  glorified  and  risen  Saviour  !  Their  eyes  are  dazzled 
with  the  spectacle  of  the  Man  that  lay  in  that  cold,  silent,  dark 
grave.  A  voice  was  heard  :  "  Arise,  for  I  am  come  for  thee  !  " 
And  the  glorified  soul  of  the  Saviour,  entering  that  moment  into 
His  body — bursts  triumphant  from  the  grave  !  Death  and  hell 
fly  from  before  His  face.  Fly,  for  a  power  is  here  that  you 
cannot  command !  Fly,  you  demons,  who  rejoiced  in  your 
triumph,  for  death  and  hell  are  conquered.  Arise,  glorious  sun, 
from  the  tomb  !  Oh,  what  do  I  behold  ?  Where,  O  Saviour,  is 
the  sign  of  the  agony  ?  Where  is  the  disfigurement  of  blood  ? 
Where  is  the  sign  of  the  executioner's  hand  upon  Thee  ?  It  is 
gone — gone !  No  longer  the  blood-stained  thorn  defiles  Thy 
brows  !  No  longer  thy  sacred  flesh  hanging  torn  from  the  bones  ! 
No  !  But  now  triumphant,  glorified,  incorruptible,  impassible. 
He  has  resumed  the  grandeur  and  the  glory  which  He  put  away 
from  Him  on  the  day  of  His  incarnation  ;  and  He  rises  from  the 
tomb,  the  conqueror  of  death  and  hell,  the  God  and  Redeemer 
of  the  world  ! 

Behold,  my  brethren,  how  sorrow  is  changed  into  joy !  Burst- 
ing forth  in  the  light  of  His  divinity,  He  went  His  way — the 
way  of  His  eternity.  The  mountains,  the  hills  of  Judea — of 
Jerusalem — bowed  down  before  Him.  The  mountains  moved 
and  rocked  on  their  bases  before  the  assertion  of  Thy  sovereignty, 
O  God  !  He  went  His  way,  and  left  behind  Him  an  empty  grave 
and  the  clothing  in  which  His  disfigured  body  had  been  wrapped 
up.  An  empty  grave !  But  all  the  angels  in  heaven  were  look- 
ing on  at  that  moment.  At  that  moment,  when  the  face  of  the 
glorified  Saviour  burst  from  the  grave,  all  the  angels  of  heaven 
put  forth  alleluias  of  joy  and  of  praise.  The  heart  of  the  Father 
in  heaven  exulted.  Rising  upon  His  eternal  throne,  He  sent 
forth  a  cry  of  joy  over  the  glory  of  His  Son.  All  the  angels  in 
heaven  exulted  ;  and,  triumphing,  they  came  down  to  earth, 
and  gazed  upon  the  sacred  spot  wherein  their  Master  and  their 
God  had  lain. 

The  morning  came,  and  the  dark  clouds  had  disappeared.  The 
very  brows  of  Olivet  seemed  to  shine  with  a  solemn  gladness, 

a6 


402  The  Resurrection. 

and  the  cedars  of  Lebanon  seemed  to  lift  their  heads  with  a  new 
instinct  of  life — almost  of  love  and  joy.  Calvary  itself  seemed 
to  rejoice.  The  morning  rose,  and  the  sun  gladly  came  up  from 
his  home  in  the  east,  and  his  first  rays  fell  upon  the  empty 
grave.  And  behold  the  Magdalen  and  the  other  pious  follow- 
ers of  our  Lord,  coming  with  ointment  and  sweet  spices  to 
anoint  Him.  They  came  ;  and  questioning — as  we  have  seen — 
questioning  each  other  :  How  could  Mary,  with  nothing  but  her 
woman's  strength,  how  could  Mary  move  that  stone  ?  But  see  ; 
it  is  moved.  And  beneath  they  behold  an  angel  of  God.  His 
light  fills  the  tomb.  There  is  no  darkness  there,  no  sign  of  sad- 
ness, no  sign  of  death.  Robed  in  transparent  white — even  as  the 
garments  of  our  Lord  shone  upon  Tabor — so  did  he  shine  as  he 
kept  guard  over  the  deathbed  of  his  Lord  and  Master.  Then, 
speaking  to  the  woman,  he  says  :  "  Woman,  whom  seekest  thou?" 
"Jesus  of  Nazareth,  who  was  crucified."  "  Why  seekest  thou 
the  living  amongst  the  dead?  He  is  not  here!  He  is  risen!" 
And  then  their  hearts  were  filled  with  a  mighty  joy;  for  the 
Master  is  risen  ;  whilst  the  soldiers,  frightened  and  crestfallen, 
went  into  Jerusalem,  loudly  proclaiming  the  appearance  to  the 
Pharisees  and  to  the  people,  and  that  He  whom  they  were  set 
to  guard  was  the  Lord  of  light  and  life,  and  the  son  of  God. 

The  eyes  that  were  oppressed  with  the  weariness  of  death 
are  now  lifted  up,  shining  in  the  glory  of  His  resurrection.  The 
hands  that  were  nailed  helplessly  to  the  cross,  now  wield 
again  the  omnipotence  of  God.  The  heart  that  was  broken 
and  oppressed  now  enters  into  the  mighty  ocean  of  the  ages 
of  His  divinity,  undisturbed,  unfettered,  unencumbered  by  any 
sorrow.  "  Christ,  risen  from  the  dead,  dies  no  more.  Death 
has  no  more  dominion  over  him."  He  died  once,  and  He  died 
for  sin.  "  Therefore,"  says  St.  Augustine,  "  by  dying  on  Cal- 
vary He  showed  that  He  was  man  ;  by  rising  from  His  grave 
He  proved  that  He  was  God." 

If,  therefore,  dearly  beloved  brethren,  during  the  past  forty 
days  the  Church  has  called  upon  us  for  fasting  and  mortifica- 
tion, has  called  upon  us  to  chastise  our  bodies  and  humble  our 
souls  ("  humiliabam  in  jejunio  animam  meam")  "  In  my  fast  I 
humble  my  soul" — if  the  Church,  during  the  past  weeks,  called 
upon  us  to  be  afflicted,  and  to  shed  our  tears  at  the  feet  of  Jesus 
crucified— if  we  have  done  this — above  all,  if  we  have  purified 


The  Resurrection.  403 

our  souls  so  as  to  let  His  light,  and  His  glory,  and  His  grace 
into  our  hearts — to-day,  have  we  a  right  to  rejoice,  and  the 
message  which  I  bring  to  you  is  a  message  of  exceeding  great 
joy.  Christ  is  risen  !  The  Crucified  has  risen  from  the  grave ! 
Weakness  has  clothed  itself  with  strength.  Ignominy  hath 
clothed  itself  with  glory.  Death  has  been  absorbed  in  victory, 
and  the  powers  of  hell  are  crushed  and  confounded  for  evermore. 
Is  not  this  a  message  of  great  joy  and  triumph  ?  And  truly  I 
may  say  to  you,  in  the  words  of  Stk  Paul,  "Gaudete  in  Domine 
itcrum  dico gaudete" — "  Rejoice,  therefore,  in  the  Lord!  I  say 
to  you  again,  rejoice  !" 

Two  reasons  have  we  for  our  Easter  joy  and  gladness.  Two 
reasons  have  we  for  our  great  rejoicing.  First  of  all,  that  of  the 
friend  to  behold  the  glory  of  his  friend  ;  the  joy  of  a  disciple  to 
see  the  glory  of  his  Master  :  a  joy  centering  in  Jesus  Christ — 
rejoicing  in  Him  and  with  Him,  for  His  own  sake.  Was  it  not 
for  His  own  sake  we  sorrowed?  Was  it  not  because  of  His 
grief  and  suffering  we  shed  our  tears  and  cast  ourselves  down 
before  Him?  So,  also,  for  His  own  sake,  let  us  rejoice.  We 
rejoice  to  behold  our  God  reassuming  the  glory  of  His  divinity, 
and  so  participate  that  glory  to  His  sacred  humanity  that  the 
sunshine  of  the  eternal  light  of  God  streams  out  from  every 
member,  sense,  and  limb  of  the  sacred  body  of  Jesus  Christ  our 
Lord.  Pure  light  it  seemed.  With  the  transparency  of  heaven 
it  assumed  all  its  splendor.  All  the  glory  was  within  Him  in 
Almighty  affluence,  and  sent  itself  forth  so  that  He  was  truly 
not  only  the  light  of  grace  for  the  world  but  the  light  of  glory. 
For  this  must  every  true  believer  in  Jesus  Christ  rejoice. 

But  the  second  cause  of  our  joy  is  for  our  own  sake ;  for, 
although  we  grieve  for  Him  and  sorrow  for  Him,  for  His  own 
sake,  upon  Calvary,  we  also  grieve  for  ourselves.  And  it  is,  for 
us,  the  keenest  and  the  bitterest  sorrow  that  the  work  of  Calvary 
was  the  work  of  our  doing  by  our  sins ;  that  if  we  were  not  what 
we  were,  He  would  never  have  been  what  He  was  on  that  Friday 
morning.  That  for  us  He  bared  His  innocent  bosom  to  receive 
all  the  sorrows  and  all  the  agonies  of  His  Passion  ;  that  for  us 
did  He  expose  His  virgin  body  to  that  fearful  scourging  and 
terrible  crucifixion  ;  that  for  our  sins  did  He  languish  upon  the 
cross;  that  they  put  upon  Him  the  burden  of  the  iniquities  of 
us  all ;  and  "  He  was  afflicted  for  our  iniquities  and  was  bruised 


404  The   Resurrection. 

for  our  sins."    It  was  for  our  own  sorrows  and  our  own  sins  that 
the  very  deepest  sorrow  has  a  place  in  the  Crucifixion.     Well 
did  He — He,  who  permitted  that  we  should  be  the  cause  of  His 
sorrow — wish  us,  also,  for  our  own  sake,  to  participate  in  His 
joy.     And  why  ?     Because  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  from  the 
dead  was  not  only  the  proof  of  His  divinity,  the  establishment 
of  His  truth,  the  conviction  of  His  miracles,  the  foundation  of 
His  religion,  but  it  was,  moreover,  the  type  and  model  of  the 
glorious  resurrection  that  awaits  every  man  who  dies  in  the  love, 
and  fear,  and  grace  of  Jesus  Christ.     Every  man  who  preserves 
his  soul  pure,  and  every  man  who  restores  to  his  soul  the  purity 
of  repentance — to  every  such  man  is  promised  the  glory  of  the 
resurrection,  like  unto  that  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.     For  as 
Christ  rose  from  the  dead,  so  shall  we  rise ;  and  as  He  clothed 
Himself  with  glory,  so  shall  we  pass  from  glory  into  glory — 
to  see  Christ  in  the  air— to  be  like  unto  Him  in  glory;  and  so 
shall  we  be  with  the  Lord   for  ever.     And  that   glory  which 
comes  to  our  Lord  to-day,  comes  not  only  to  His  grand  soul 
returning  surrounded    by  the  saints  whom  He   had  delivered 
from  their  prison,  but  it  comes  also  to  His  body,  wiping  away 
and  erasing   every  stain,  every  defilement,   every  wound,  and 
communicating  to  that  body  the  attributes  of  the  spirit ;  for 
"  That  which  was  laid  down  in  dishonor  rose  in  glory" — that 
which  was  laid  down   in  weakness  rose  in  power — that  which 
was  laid   down   subject  to  grief,  if  not  to  corruption,  rose  a 
spiritual  and  incorruptible  body.     Even  so  shall  we  rise — for  I 
announce  to  you  a  wonderful  thing,  that  when  the  angels  sound 
the  trumpet,  and  call  the  dead  to  judgment,  they  that  are  in 
Christ   f hall  rise  first  ;  and  as  the  soul  of  the  Redeemer  went 
back  to  the  tomb,  and  entered  into  His  body,  to  make  that  body 
shine  in  its  spiritual  glory — so  shall  our  souls  return  from  the 
heights  of  heavenly  contemplation  to  find  these  bodies  again— 
to  re-enter  them — and  to  make  them  shine  with  the  glory  of 
God,  if  we  only  consent  to  live  and  die  in  the  grace  and  favor 
of  Jesus  Christ.     The  eyes  that  now  cannot  look  upon  the  sun 
in  heaven  without  being  blinded,  these  very  eyes  can  gaze  upon 
the  face  of  God  and  not  be  blinded  by  His  majesty.     The  ears 
that  now  weary  of  the  music  of  earth  shall  be  so  attuned  to  the 
music  of  heaven  that  the  rapture  of  its  hearing  will  continue  in 
all  the  ecstasy  of  delight,  so  long  as  God  is  God.     The  heart, 


The   Resurrection.  405 

now  so  circumscribed  as  scarcely  to  be  able  to  rise  to  the  dignity 
of  the  highest  form  of  human  love — will  then  be  so  purified  and 
exalted  that  it  will  be  filled  with  the  fairest  forms  of  divine  love 
— purified,  sanctified,  animating  every  natural  sentiment,  every 
affection,  until  the  body,  growing  into  the  soul's  essence,  shall 
all  become  spiritual  and,  as  it  were,  divine.  In  a  word,  this 
gross,  corruptible,  material  body  of  ours  shall  be  so  spiritualized 
— so  glorified — so  refined,  as  to  be  capable  of  the  most  exquisite 
pleasure  of  every  spiritual  sense  ;  and  yet  pleasures  purifying  to 
the  soul,  in  which  every  thought  and  every  power  of  the  soul 
and  body  shall  be  wrapped  up  into  God. 

But  mark,  dear  brethren ;  the  resurrection  of  our  Lord  is  the 
pledge  and  promise  that  every  soul  shall  rea'iize  ;  but  two  things 
are  necessary  in  order  to  arrive  at  this  glory.  Two  conditions 
are  laid  down  in  order  to  attain  to  this  wonderful  fulfillment  of 
all  the  love  of  the  redemption  of  Jesus  Christ.  And  these  two 
things  are :  First  of  all,  we  must  keep  a  pure  soul  and  a  pure 
conscience.  Mark  how  Jesus  Christ  came  to  His  glory;  He 
took  a  human  heart,  He  took  a  human  soul,  He  took  a  hu- 
man conscience — for  He  was  true  man.  But  He  took  every  ele-. 
ment  of  His  humanity  from  a  source  so  pure,  so  limpid,  so  holy, 
that,  in  heaven  or  on  earth,  nothing  was  ever  seen  or  ever  shall 
be  seen  until  the  end  of  eternity  that  shall  be  compared  with  the 
blessed  Virgin's  son.  Throughout  His  whole  life  of  thirty- 
three  years,  nothing  in  it  could  have  the  slightest  shadow  of 
sin — nothing  that  could  have  the  slightest  feature  of  sin  upon  \\, 
ever  was  allowed  to  come  near  the  blessed  and  most  immacu- 
late soul  and  heart  of  Jesus  Christ.  When  at  last  He  permitted 
the  appearance  of  the  sin  that  was  not  His  own  to  come  upon 
Him — to  touch  Him  nearly — it  so  frightened  Him — it  so  horri- 
fied Him — that  the  blood  burst,  as  we  know,  from  every  pore 
of  His  body.  It  seemed  as  if  His  body,  as  it  were,  could  not 
stand  the  sight  ;  His  was  the  grace  of  purity.  Oh,  my  beloved 
brethren,  that  we  might  attain  to  that  self-same  purity,  as  far  as 
our  nature  will  permit  us,  that  we  might  only  know  the  beauty 
of  that  purity  beaming  from  Him  as  its  author  and  creator! 
Christ,  our  Lord,  laid  out  in  His  church  the  path  of  purity — the 
path  of  innocence.  But  for  all  those  who  fall,  or  stumble,  or  turn 
aside  for  a  moment,  He  has  built  another  royal  road  to  salvation, 
namely,  the  road  of  penance.     One  or  other  of  these  must  we 


406  The  Resurrection. 

tiead  ;  whether  we  tread  the  way  of  purity  or  the  way  of  pen 
ance,  we  must  suffer  with  Christ  if  we  wish  to  be  purified  with 
Him.  But  mark  !  All  pure  and  holy  as  He  was — infinite  purity 
and  holiness  itself — no  passion  to  disturb  Him — no  evil  example 
to  exercise  its  influence  over  Him — no  secret  emotion  of  pleas- 
ure, even  of  that  purely"  human  pleasure,  to  come  and  interfere 
in  the  remotest  degree  with  the  perfect  union  with  His  divinity 
—yet,  with  all  this,  He  mortified  that  sacred  body  ;  He  fasted  ; 
He  humbled  Himself;  He  prayed  ;  and  He  ended  by  giving  that 
body  to  be  scourged  and  to  be  crucified !  He  shed  His  blood. 
What  an  example  was  this  !  That  body  of  Jesus  Christ  was  no 
impediment  to  His  holiness.  It  only  helped  Him  ;  for  it  was  the 
instrument  of  His  divine  will  in  the  salvation  of  man.  Our 
bodies,  on  the  other  hand,  impede  us  every  day,  and  put  be- 
tween us  and  God.  Every  passion  that  dwells  within  us,  rises 
from  time  to  time  to  separate  us  from  God.  Every  appetite 
that  clamors  for  enjoyment  would  fain  destroy  the  soul  for  ever, 
for  a  momentary  pleasure.  Every  sense  that  brings  thought 
and  idea  to  the  spirit  brings  also  in  its  train  the  imminent,  the 
dangerous,  the  poisonous  image  of  the  evil  example  of  sin. 
That  which,  with  Christ,  was  a  work  of  pleasure,  is,  with  us,  a 
work  of  toil.  It  is  toil  to  deny  ourselves  somewhat — to  put  the 
sign  of  the  cross,  in  penance  and  mortification,  upon  this  flesh — 
to  enter  somewhat  into  the  sufferings  of  our  Lord — into  His  fast- 
ing— into  His  prayer — into  His  mortification — in  order  that  our 
bodies  may  be  chastened ;  for  it  is  only  chastened  bodies  that 
can  contain  pure  and  sinless  souls.  Those  who  are  pure  must 
chastise  their  bodies  somewhat — must  deny  themselves — in 
order  to  preserve  their  purity.  Those  who  are  penitent  must 
do  it  in  order  to  appease  the  justice  of  God  upon  that  body 
which  has  led  them  away,  some  time  or  other,  from  God  by  sin, 
and  so  tended  to  destroy  the  soul.  And  this  is  the  reason  why 
the  Catholic  Church  commands  us  to  fast ;  that  it  tells  us  we  must 
not  enjoy  overmuch  the  pleasures  of  the  theatre  ;  the  pleasures 
of  gay  and  festive  reunions.  It  tells  us  that  we  must,  from  time  to 
time,  be  hungry,  and  yet  not  taste  food — that  we  must  be 
thirsty,  and  yet  refuse  to  refresh  ourselves  for  a  time  with  drink. 
And  this,  not  only  that  these  bodies  may  be  chastened  for  a  time, 
but  transformed  into  fitness  for  the  glory  of  heaven.  And  here 
I  would  remark  that  whilst  every  other  religion,  whilst  every 


The  Resurrection.  407 

false  religion,  puts  away  sadness  and  sorrow,  puts  away  the 
precept  of  fasting,  and  says  that  men  may  pander  to,  and  feed, 
and  cherish  their  bodies,  the  Catholic  Church,  alone,  from  the 
very  first  day  of  its  existence,  drew  the  sword  of  the  spirit — the 
sword  of  mortification — and  declares  through  her  monks,  through 
her  hermits,  through  her  virgins,  through  her  priesthood,  that  the 
body  must  be  subdued,  it  must  be  abased,  it  must  be  chastened, 
in  order  that  the  soufmay  rise  to  God  by  purity  and  grace  here, 
and  through  them,  to  the  spiritual  glory  of  the  resurrection 
hereafter. 

I  say  that  there  is  a  third  motive  for  our  joy  this  morning — 
and  it  is  this :  May  I,  dearly  beloved,  in  this,  which  I  may  call 
the  closing  day  of  our  Lent — may  I  congratulate  those  whom  I 
see  before  me  !  The  constant  attendance  of  many  amongst  you 
during  the  last  forty  evenings  of  Lent  has  made  your  faces 
familiar  to  me.  Over  these  Catholic  countenances  have  I  seen 
from  time  to  time,  the  expression — now,  of  sorrow — now,  of 
delight — but,  whether  of  sorrow  or  of  joy,  of  sympathy  with 
Jesus  Christ.  Of  this  am  I  a  witness,  and  on  this  do  I  con- 
gratulate you.  If  it  be  true  that  the  Christian  man  is,  indeed,  a 
man  in  whom  Christ  lives,  according  to  the  words  of  the  Apos- 
tle :  "  I  live  no  longer,  I,  but  Christ  lives  within  me  " — then,  ac- 
cording to  his  words  you  are  lost  to  yourselves  ;  you  are  dead  ; 
and  your  life  is  hidden  with  Christ  in  God.  If,  then,  the  Chris- 
tian man  be  the  man  in  whom  Christ  lives,  well  may  I  congratu- 
late you  upon  every  emotion  of  joy  and  of  sorrow  that  has 
passed  through  your  hearts  and  over  your  faces  during  these 
forty  blessed  days  that  you  have  passed ;  because  these  emotions 
were  the  gift  of  Christ,  and  the  evidence  of  the  life  of  Christ  in 
you,  and  of  your  familiarity  with  Christ's  image. 

May  I  congratulate  you  on  a  good  confession  and  a  fervent 
communion  ?  May  I,  in  heart  and  spirit,  bow  down  before 
every  man  amongst  you  to-day,  as  a  man  who  holds  in  his 
bosom  Jesus  Christ;  as  a  man  whose  heart  is  not  an  empty 
tomb,  like  that  in  the  garden  outside  Jerusalem ;  not  occu- 
pied merely  by  an  angel,  but  whose  heart  is  the  sanctuary 
wherein  the  risen  and  glorified  Saviour  dwells  this  morning5 
May  I  congratulate  you  on  this  ?  I  hope  so  !  I  hope  that  the 
words  that  have  been  heard  here  have  not  been  spoken  in  vain. 
It  would  fill  me  with  fear  if  I  thought  there  was  one  amongst 


408  The  Resurrection. 

the  audience  who  filled  this  church  during  the  last  Lent,  whose 
hardened  heart  refused  to  make  his  Easter  confession  and  com- 
munion ;  and  to  make  it  as  the  beginning  of  a  series  of  more 
frequent — and,  if  possible,  of  monthly  confessions  and  com- 
munions. It  would  fill  me  with  fear  if  I  thought  there  was 
such  a  one  here ;  because  then  there  would  come  upon  me  the 
conviction  that  it  was  my  own  unworthiness — my  own  unfit- 
ness— my  own  weakness  that  made  the  Word  fall  fruitless  on 
my  lips,  and,  perhaps,  make  me  a  reprobate  whilst  I  was 
preaching  the  Word.  But,  no!  Nay,  I  will  rather  presume 
that  God  has  done  His  own  work — that  the  Divine  Husband- 
man, who  placed  the  seed  of  His  Word  in  such  hands  as  mine — 
most  unworthy — that  He  has  made  that  Word  spring  up,  and 
that  the  fairest  flowers  of  grace  and  sanctity  already  crown  it  in 
your  hearts  to-day.  Upon  this,  therefore,  I  congratulate  you 
as  the  third  great  motive  of  your  joy ;  that  not  only  is  the 
Saviour  glorified  in  Jerusalem,  but  He  is  glorified  in  your  hearts. 
Not  only  has  He  conquered  death  in  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane, 
but  He  has  conquered  death  in  your  souls.  Not  only  has  He 
driven  the  devil  and  all  the  powers  of  hell  before  Him,  as  He 
burst  from  the  tomb,  but  He  has  driven  him  from  your  hearts, 
into  which  He  has  entered  this  morning.  Oh,  brethren,  keep 
Him !  Keep  Him  as  your  best  and  only  friend  !  Keep  Him  as 
you  would  keep  the  pledge  of  that  future  glory  which  is  to  come, 
and  of  which,  says  the  Apostle,  "  Eye  hath  not  seen  and  ear 
hath  not  heard ;  nor  hath  it  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to 
conceive — what  things  the  Lord  God  of  heaven  hath  prepared 
for  those  who  cease  not  to  love  Him  !  " 


THE  POPE'S  TIARA-ITS  PAST, 
PRESENT,  AND  FUTURE. 


[Lecture  delivered  in  the  Academy  of  Music,  New  York,  under  the  auspices  of 
the  Council  of  the  Catholic  Union,  Circle  of  New  York  ;  the  proceeds  of  the  lecture 
to  be  sent  to  the  Pope.] 

AY  it  please  your  Grace  :  Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :  The 
subject  on  which  I  propose  to  address  you  is :  "  The 
Pope's  Tiara,  or  Triple  Crown  ;  it  Past,  its  Present, 
and  its  Future."  We  read  of  a  celebrated  orator  of 
Greece,  that  the  grandest  effort  he  ever  made  was  in  a  speech 
which  he  pronounced  upon  a  crown.  I  wish  I  had,  to-night,  the 
genius  or  the  eloquence  of  Demosthenes ;  for  my  theme,  my 
crown,  is  as  far  beyond  the  glory  of  the  crown  of  which  he 
spoke,  as  my  thoughts  and  my  eloquence  are  inferior  to  his. 

Amongst  the  promises  and  prophetic  words  that  we  read  in 
Scripture  concerning  our  divine  Lord  and  Redeemer,  we  read 
that  it  was  prophesied  of  Him  that  He  should  be  a  king;  that 
He  should  rule  the  nations ;  that  He  should  wear  a  crown  ;  and 
that  His  name  was  to  be  called  "  The  Prince  of  Peace."  He 
came  ;  He  fulfilled  all  that  was  written  concerning  Him  ;  and 
He  transmitted  His  headship  and  his  office  in  the  holy  Church 
to  be  vis'bly  exercised  and  to  be  embodied  before  the  eyes  of 
men  in  tne  Pope  of  Rome.  And,  therefore,  amongst  the  other 
privileges  which  He  conferred  upon  His  vicar,  He  gave  him 
that  his  brows  should  wear  a  crown.  Therefore  it  is  that,  from 
the  first  day  of  the  Church's  history,  her  ruler,  her  pope,  her 
head,  rises  before  us,  a  sceptred  man  amongst  men,  and  crowned 
with  a  glorious  crown.  Therefore  it  is  that,  encircling  his  hon- 
ored brows,  for  ages,  the  world  has  beheld  the  triple  crown,  or 
tiara,  of  which  I  am  to  speak  t<»  you  this  evening.     Every  other 


410  The  Popes  Tiara. 

monarch  amongst  the  nations  wears  for  his  crown  a  single  cir 
clet  of  gold.  Ornament  it  as  you  will,  there  is  but  one  circle 
that  would  represent  the  meeting  and  the  centring  in  the  per- 
son of  the  sovereign  of  all  the  temporal  interests  and  authority 
of  the  State.  Upon  the  pope's  brows,  however,  rests  a  triple 
crown,  called  the  tiara.  It  is  made  up  of  three  distinct  circles 
of  gold.  The  first  of  these  is  symbolical  of  the  universal  epis- 
copate of  the  Pope  of  Rome — that  is  to  say,  of  his  headship  of 
all  the  faithful  in  the  Church ;  for,  "  there  shall  be  but  one  fold 
and  one  shepherd,"  was  the  word  of  Christ.  The  second  of 
these  circles  that  crowns  the  papal  brows  represents  the  su- 
premacy of  jurisdiction,  by  which  the  pope  governs  not  only  all 
the  faithful  in  the  world  at  large,  feeding  them,  as  their  supreme 
pastor,  but  by  which,  also,  he  holds  the  supremacy  of  jurisdiction 
and  of  power  over  the  anointed  ministers,  and  the  episcopacy 
itself,  in  the  Church  of  God.  The  third  and  last  circle  of  this 
crown  represents  the  temporal  influence,  the  temporal  dominion, 
which  the  pope  has  exercised  and  enjoyed  for  more  than  a  thou- 
sand years  in  this  world. 

Behold,  then,  what  this  tiara  means.  Upon  those  great  fes- 
tival days,  when  all  the  Catholic  world  was  accustomed  to  be 
represented  by  its  highest,  by  its  best  and  noblest,  by  its  most 
intellectual  representatives  in  Rome,  the  Holy  Father  was  seen 
enthroned,  surrounded  by  cardinals,  patriarchs,  archbishops, 
bishops,  the  priesthood,  and  the  faithful.  There  he  sat  upon  his 
high,  and  ancient,  and  time-honored  throne ;  and  upon  his  head 
did  he  wear  this  triple  crown,  symbolizing  his  triple  power. 

Now,  my  friends,  in  the  Church  of  God  everything  is  organ- 
ized ;  everything  arranged  and  disposed  in  a  wonderful  harmony, 
which  expresses  the  mind  and  the  wisdom  of  God  Himself. 
And  therefore  it  is,  that  in  every  detail  of  the  Catholic  liturgy 
and  worship,  we  find  the  very  highest,  and  the  very  holiest  gifts 
symbolized  and  signified  to  the  man  of  faith.  What  do  those 
three  circles  of  the  pope's  tiara  symbolize?  They  signify,  first 
of  all,  the  unity  that  God  has  set  upon  His  Church;  secondly, 
they  signify  the  power  and  jurisdiction  that  God  has  conferred 
upon  His  Church;  and  thirdly,  they  signify  all  these  benefits  of 
a  humane  kind,  which  the  Church  has  conferred  upon  this  world, 
and  upon  society. 

The  first  circlet  of  this    tiara   represents   the  unity  of  the 


The  Popes   Tiara.  4" 

Church.  For  it  tells  the  faithful,  that  although  they  may  be 
diffused  all  the  world  over,  although  they  may  be  counted  by 
hundreds  of  millions,  although  they  may  be  found  in  every 
clime,  and  speaking  every  language,  although  they  may  be 
broken  up  into  various  forms  of  government,  thinking  ill  varied 
forms  of  thought,  having  varied  and  distinguished  interests  ill 
the  things  that  should  never  perish,  but  abide  with  them  for 
eternity  ;  that  moment,  out  of  all  these  varied  elements,  out  of 
these  multiplied  millions,  out  of  these  different  nations,  arises 
one  thought,  one  act  of  obedience,  one  aspiration  of  prayer,  one 
uplifting  of  the  whole  man,  body  and  soul,  in  the  unity  of  wor- 
ship, which  distinguishes  the  Catholic  Church,  the  spouse  ot 
Christ.  This  was  the  first  mark  that  Christ,  the  Son  of  God, 
set  upon  the  brows  of  His  Church.  He  set  upon  her  the  glori- 
ous seal  of  unity  in  doctrine,  that  all  men,  throughout  the  world, 
who  belonged  to  her,  were  to  be  as  one  individual  man,  in  the 
one  soul  and  the  one  belief  of  their  divine  faith.  He  set  upon 
her  brows  the  unity  of  charity — that  all  men  were  to  be  one, 
in  one  heart,  and  in  one  bond,  which  was  to  bind  all  Christian 
men  to  their  fellow-men,  through  the  one  heart  of  Christ.  And, 
in  order  to  effect  this  unity,  the  Son  of  God  put  forth,  the  night 
before  He  suffered,  the  tender,  but  omnipotent  prayer,  in  which 
He  besought  His  Father  that  the  unity  of  the  Church  should 
be  visible  to  all  men,  and  that  it  should  be  so  perfect  as  to 
represent  the  ineffable  unity  by  which  He  was  one  with  His 
Father,  in  that  singleness  of  nature  which  is  the  quintessence  of 
the  Almighty  God.  It  was  to  be  a  visible  unity.  It  was  to  be 
a  unity  that  would  force  itself  upon  the  notice  of  the  world.  It 
was  to  be  a  unity  of  thought  and  belief  that  would  convince  the 
world  that  the  one  mind,  and  the  one  word  of  the  Lord  of  all 
truth,  was  in  the  heart,  and  in  the  intelligence,  and  upon  the 
lips  of  His  Church.  It  would  be  in  vain  that  Christ,  the  Son 
of  God,  prayed  for  that  unity,  if  it  was  to  be  a  hidden  thing,  not 
seen  and  known  by  men  ;  if  it  was  to  be  a  contradictory  thing, 
involving  an  outrage  upon  all  logic  and  all  reason ;  as,  for  in- 
stance, the  Protestant  idea  of  unity,  which  is,  "  Let  us 
agree  to  differ."  "  Let  us  agree  to  differ."  Why,  what 
does  this  mean  ?  It  means  something  like  what  the  Irish- 
man meant,  when  he  met  his  friend,  and  said,  "  Oh,  my  dear 
fellow,   I  am  so  happy  and  glad  to  meet  you!     And  I  want 


412  The  Popes  Tiara. 

to  give  you  a  proof  of  it."  And  he  knocked  him  down. 
But  you  remember  this  was  the  sign  of  love.  And  so,  the  Prot- 
estant xogic  of  this  world  says  :  "  Let  us  agree  to  differ."  That 
is  to  say :  Let  us  create  unity  by  making  disunion.  Now,  as 
the  divine,  eternal,  incarnate  wisdom  determined  that  that  crown 
aud  countersign  of  unity  should  be  visible  upon  His  Church, 
it  was  absolutely  necessary  for  him  to  constitute  one  man — one 
individual  man — as  the  visible  sign  and  guarantee  of  that  unity 
in  the  Church  for  ever.  It  would  not  have  answered  to  have 
left  the  twelve  Apostles  equal  in  power,  equal  in  jurisdiction. 
For,  all  holy  as  they  were,  all  inspired  as  they  were,  if  equal 
power  and  jurisdiction  had  been  left  to  all,  if  no  one  man 
amongst  them  had  been  brought  forth  and  made  the  head  of 
all,  with  all  their  perfection,  with  all  their  inspiration,  with  all 
their  love  for  Christ,  they  would  not,  being  twelve,  have  repre- 
sented the  sacred  principle  of  unity  in  the  Church.  Therefore 
did  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  from  amongst  the  twelve  take  one, 
called  that  man  forth,  He  laid  His  hands  upon  him,  and  said, 
"  Hear  him  !  hear  his  words  !"  That  He  did  not  say  of  any  of 
the  others,  but  took  care  that  all  the  others  should  be  present 
to  witness  these  words  and  to  acknowledge  their  chief.  He  took 
that  man  in  the  presence  of  the  twelve,  and  He  said  to  him — 
to  them  :  "  Hitherto  you  have  been  called  Simon  ;  now  I  say 
your  name  is  Cephas,  which  means  a  rock  ;  and  upon  this  rock 
I  will  build  My  Church."  Again,  in  the  plainest  of  language  he 
said  to  that  man  :  "  Thou — thou,  O  rock,  confirm  thy  brethren !" 
In  the  presence  of  all,  He  demanded  of  that  man  the  triple, 
thrice-repeated  acknowledgment  and  confession  of  his  love. 
"  Peter,"  He  said  to  him,  "you  know  how  dearly  John,  my  vir- 
gin friend,  loves  Me.  Do  you  love  Me  more?  You  know  how 
well  all  these  around  Me  love  Me.  Do  you  love  Me  more  than 
all?"  And  until  Peter  three  times  asserted  that  he  loved  His 
Master  with  a  love  surpassing  that  of  all  others,  Christ  delayed 
His  divine  commission.  But,  when  the  triple  acknowledgment 
was  made,  He  said  to  Peter  :  "  Feed  thou  My  lambs  ;  feed  thou 
My  sheep."  "  There  shall  be  one  fold,"  said  the  Son  of  God, 
"  and  one  shepherd."  That  was  the  visible  unity  of  the  Church  ; 
that  was  to  be  the  countersign  of  the  divine  origin  of  the  Church 
of  God,  and  that  was  to  be  represented  unto  all  ages  by  the  one 
head  and  supreme  pastor  of  all — the  Pope  of  Rome. 


The  Popes   Tiara.  413 

Mark  the  splendid  harmony  that  is  here.  The  adorable  Son 
of  God  is  one  with  the  Father,  by  the  ineffable  union  of  nature, 
from  all  eternity.  The  Son  of  God,  made  man,  still  is  man,  and 
only  man,  in  the  hypostatical  union  in  which  the  two  natures 
met  in  one  divine  person.  The  Church  that  sprung  from 
Christ — the  Lord  God  and  man,  united — is  to  be  one  until  the 
end  of  time.  And,  therefore,  the  principle  of  unity  passes, 
as  it  were,  from  Christ  to  Peter,  and  from  Peter  to  each  suc- 
ceeding pontiff;  so  that  the  Church  of  God  is  recognized  by  its 
union  with  its  head,  and  by  that,  the  One  Head,  which  governs 
all.  Therefore  did  St.  Ambrose  say:  "Show  me  Peter;  for, 
where  Peter  is,  there  is  the  Church  of  God." 

Now,  you  see  at  once  the  significance  of  that  first  circle  of 
gold  that  twines  round  the  papal  crown.  It  speaks  of  the  pope 
as  the  supreme  pastor  of  all  the  faithful.  It  speaks  of  him  as 
the  one  voice,  and  the  only  one,  able  to  fill  the  world,  and 
before  whose  utterances  the  whole  Christian  and  Catholic  world 
bows  down  as  one  man.  It  speaks  of  the  pope  as  the  one 
shepherd  of  the  one  fold  ;  and  it  tells  us  that  as  we  are  bound  to 
hear  his  voice,  and  as  that  voice  can  never  resound  through  the 
whole  Church,  which  cannot  by  possibility  proclaim  a  lie — 
that  when  the  Pope  of  Rome  speaks  to  the  faithful  as  supreme 
pastor,  pronouncing  upon  and  witnessing  the  faith  of  the 
Catholic  Church — that  the  self-same  spirit  that  preserves 
that  Church  from  falling  into  error,  preserves  her  pastor, 
so  that  he  can  never  propound  to  her  anything  erroneous  or 
unholy,  or  at  variance  with  the  sacred  morality  of  the  Christian 
law. 

The  second  circle  of  gold  represents  the  second  great  attribute 
that  Christ,  our  Lord,  emphatically  laid  upon  His  Church.  As 
clearly  as  He  proved  that  that  Church  should  be  one,  so  clearly 
did  He  pray  and  prophesy  that  that  Church  was  to  have  power 
'  and  jurisdiction.  "  All  power,"  He  said  to  His  Apostles,  "all 
power  in  Heaven  and  upon  earth  is  given  unto  Me."  Behold 
the  Head  of  the  Church  speaking  to  His  Church.  "  Given  unto 
Me  !  "  "I  am  the  centre  of  that  power."  "  As  the  Father  sent 
Me,  thus  indued  with  power,  so  do  I  send  you."  And  then  He 
set  upon  the  brows  of  His  Apostles,  and,  through  them,  on  the 
Church,  the  crown  of  spiritual  power.  But,  as  all  power  is 
derived  from  God,  it  follows  that  in  the  Church  of  God.  whoever 


414  The  Pope's  Tiara. 

represents,  as  viceroy  and  vicar,  supreme  pastor  and  ruler  of  the 
Church — whoever  represents  Christ,  who  is  the  source  of  all 
power,  that  man  has  supreme  jurisdiction  in  the  Church  of  God, 
not  only  over  the  faithful,  but  over  the  pastors  of  the  flock 
and  the  episcopacy.  James,  and  John,  and  Andrew,  and  Philip, 
and  the  others,  were  all  bishops.  St.  Ignatius  of  Antioch,  and 
all  the  succeeding  great  names  that  adorn  the  episcopal  roll 
in  the  Church — all  had  power;  all  exercised  power;  and  &U 
were  recognized  as  the  Church  recognizes  them  and  their  sue 
cessors  still,  as  her  archbishops  and  bishops  ;  and  all  had  that 
power  by  divine  institution,  and  that  their  episcopacy  in  the 
Church  is  of  divine  origin  ;  and  yet  that  power  is  so  subjugated 
and  subordinated  that  the  pope,  is  the  supreme  bishop  of  bishops, 
to  whom  Christ  said,  "  feed  not  only  the  lambs,"  my  faithful ; 
but  "  feed  my  sheep,"  the  matured  ones  and  holy  ones  in  the 
sanctuary  of  the  Church. 

Finally,  the  third  circle  of  gold  twining  around  that  time-hon- 
ored crown  of  the  tiara,  represents  the  temporal  power  that  the 
pope  has  wielded  for  so  many  centuries,  and  which  has  been  the 
cause  of  so  many  blessings,  and  so  much  liberty  and  civilization 
to  the  world. 

It  was  not  in  the  direct  mission  of  the  Church  of  God  to 
civilize  mankind,  but  only  to  sanctify  them.  But,  inasmuch  as 
no  man  can  be  sanctified  without  being  instructed,  without  the 
elements  of  civilization  being  applied  to  him,  therefore,  indirect- 
ly, but  most  powerfully,  did  Christ,  our  Lord,  confer  upon  His 
Church  that  she  should  be  the  great  former  and  creator  of  so- 
ciety ;  that  she  should  be  the  mother  of  the  highest  civilization 
of  this  world  ;  that  she  should  be  the  giver  of  the  choicest  and 
the  highest  of  human  gifts  ;  and,  therefore,  that  she  should  have 
that  power,  that  jurisdiction,  that  position,  in  her  head,  amongst 
the  rulers  of  the  nations,  that  would  give  her  a  strong  voice  and 
a  powerful  action  in  the  guidance  of  human  society.  And  as  to 
the  second  circle  of  this  golden  crown — viz.,  the  universal  pas- 
torate of  the  Church — and  the  supremacy,  even  in  the  sanctu- 
ary—both of  these  did  Peter  receive  from  Christ ;  and  these 
two  have  been  twined  round  the  papal  brow  by  the  very  hand 
of  the  Son  of  God,  Himself! 

The  third  circle,  of  temporal  power,  the  pope  received  at  the 
hands  of  the  world  ;  at  the  hands  of  human  society ;  at  the 


The  Popes   Tiara.  415 

hands  of  the  people.  And  he  received  it  out  of  the  necessities 
of  the  people,  that  he  might  be  their  king,  their  ruler,  and  their 
father  upon  this  earth. 

Now,  such  being  the  tiara,  we  come  to  consider  it  in  the  past, 
as  history  tells  us  of  it ;  in  its  present,  as  we  behold  it  to-day ; 
and  in  its  future. 

How  old  is  this  tiara  ?  I  answer  that  although  the  mere  ma- 
terial crown  and  its  form  dates  only  from  about  the  year  1340, 
or  '42,  and  the  pontificate  of  Benedict  the  Twelfth,  the  tiara 
itself — the  reality  of  it — the  thing  that  it  signifies — is  as  ancient 
as  the  Church  of  God,  which  was  founded  by  Christ,  our  Lord. 
In  the  past,  from  the  day  that  the  Son  of  God  ascended  into 
heaven,  all  history  attests  to  us  that  Peter,  and  Peter's  succes- 
sors, were  acknowledged  to  be  the  supreme  pastors  of  the 
Church  of  God.  Never,  when  Peter  spoke,  never  did  the 
Church  refuse  to  accept  his  word,  and  to  bow  down  before  his 
final  decision.  In  the  very  first  Council  of  Jerusalem,  grave 
questions  that  were  brought  before  the  assembly  were  argued 
upon  by  various  of  the  Apostles,  until  Peter  rose,  and  the  mo- 
ment that  Peter  spoke  and  said,  "  Let  this  be  done  so;  let  such 
things  be  omitted  ;  such  things  be  enforced  " — that  moment 
every  man  in  the  assembly  held  his  peace,  and  took  the  decision 
of  Peter  as  the  very  echo  of  the  Invisible  Head  of  the  Church, 
who  spoke  in  him,  by,  and  through  him.  In  all  the  succeeding 
ages,  the  nations  bowed  down  as  they  received  the  words  of  the 
Gospel.  The  nations  bowed  down  and  accepted  that  message 
on  the  authority  and  on  the  testimony  of  the  Pope  of  Rome! 
Where,  amongst  the  nations  who  have  embraced  the  Cross — 
where,  amongst  the  nations  who  have  upheld  the  Cross — where 
is  there  one  that  did  not  receive  its  mission  and  its  Gospel  mes- 
sage, on  the  message  and  on  the  testimony  of  the  Pope  of 
Rome?  From  the  very  first  ages,  whilst  they  yet  lay  hid  in  the 
catacombs,  we  read  of  saintly  missionaries  going  forth  from 
under  the  pope's  hands  to  spread  the  message  of  Divine  Truth 
throughout  the  lands.  Scarcely  had  the  Church  emerged  from 
the  catacombs,  and  burst  into  the  glory  and  splendor  of  her  re- 
newed existence,  than  we  find  one  of  the  early  Popes  of  Rome 
laying  his  hand  upon  the  head  of  a  holy  youth  that  knelt  before 
him,  consecrating  that  youth  into  the  priesthood,  into  the  epis- 
copacy, and  sending  him  straight  from  Rome  to  a  mission,  the 


41 6  The  Popes  Tiara. 

grandest  and  the  most  fruitful — the  most  glorious  of  any  in  the 
Church.  That  pope  was  Celestine,  of  Rome,  and  the  man 
whom  he  sent  was  Patrick,  who,  by  the  Pope's  order, 
wended  his  way  to  Ireland.  From  the  Pope  of  Rome  d:d 
he  (Patrick)  receive  his  mission  and  his  message.  From 
the  Pope  of  Rome  did  he  receive  his  authority  and  his  juris- 
diction. The  diploma  that  he  brought  to  Ireland  was  attached 
to  the  Gospel  itself.  It  was  the  testimony  of  the  Church  of 
Christ,  countersigned  by  Celestine,  who  derived  his  authority 
from  Peter,  who  derived  his  from  Christ.  And  when,  in  his  old 
age,  he  had  evangelized  the  whole  island  ;  when  he  had  brought 
Ireland  into  the  full  light  of  the  Christian  faith,  and  into  the 
full  blaze  of  her  Christian  sanctity,  the  aged  apostle,  now  droop- 
ing into  years,  called  the  bishops  and  the  priests  of  Ireland 
around  him  ;  and,  amongst  his  last  words  to  them  were  these  : 
"  If  ever  a  difficulty  arises  amongst  you ; — if  ever  a  doubt  of 
any  passage  of  the  Scripture — or  of  any  doctrine  of  the  Church's 
law — or  of  anything  touching  the  Church  of  God  or  the  salva- 
tion of  the  souls  of  your  people — if  ever  any  doubt  arises 
amongst  you,  go  to  Rome — to  the  mother  of  the  nations — and 
Peter  will  instruct  you  thereon  !"  Well  and  faithfully  did  the 
mind  and  the  heart  of  Ireland  take  in  the  words  of  its  saintly 
Apostle.  Never — through  good  report  or  evil  report — never  has 
Ireland  swerved  for  one  instant — never  has  she  turned  to  look 
with  a  favoring  or  a  reverential  eye  upon  this  authority  or  upon 
that ;  but  straight  to  Peter.  Never  has  she,  for  an  instant,  lost 
her  instinct,  so  as  to  mistake  for  Peter  any  pretender,  or  any 
other  pope !  Never,  for  an  instant,  has  she  allowed  her  heart 
or  her  hand  to  be  snared  from  Peter  !  It  is  a  long  story.  It  is 
a  story  of  fourteen  hundred  years.  But  Ireland  has  preserved 
her  faith  through  her  devotion  to  Peter,  and  to  the  Pope  of 
Rome,  Peter's  successor  ;  and  she  has  seen  every  nation  during 
these  fourteen  hundred  years — every  nation  that  ever  separated 
from  Peter — she  has  seen  them,  one  and  all,  languish  and  die, 
until  the  sap  of  divine  knowledge,  until  the  sap  of  divine  grace, 
was  dried  up  in  them  ;  and  they  utterly  perished,  because 
they  were  separated  from  the  Rock  of  Ages,  the  Pope  of  Rome 
Just  as  the  people,  in  all  ages,  and  in  all  times,  bowed  down 
before  their  supreme  pastor,  so,  also,  has  the  episcopate  in  the 
Church  of  God,  at  all  times,  recognized  the  supremacy  of  the 


The  Popes   Tiara.  417 

Pope  of  Rome,  and,  at  all  times,  bowed  before  the  second  crown 
that  encircles  his  glorious  tiara.  Never  did  the  episcopacy  of 
the  Catholic  Church  meet  in  council  except  upon  the  invocation 
of  the  Pope  of  Rome.  Never  did  they  promulgate  a  decree 
until  they  first  sent  it  to  the  Pope  of  Rome  to  ask  him  if  it  was 
according  to  the  truth,  and  to  get  the  seal  and  the  countersign 
of  his  name  upon  it,  that  it  might  have  the  authority  of  the 
Church  of  God  before  their  people.  From  time  to  time,  in  the 
history  of  the  episcopate,  there  have  been  rebellious  men  that 
rose  up  against  the  authority,  and  disputed  the  power  of  the 
Church  of  Rome.  But,  just  as  the  nations  that  separated  from 
Peter,  separated  themselves  thereby  from  the  unity  of  the  truth, 
and  of  sanctity,  and  of  Christian  doctrine,  and  of  Christian 
morality,  so,  in  like  manner,  the  bishop  who,  at  any  time,  in  any 
place,  or  in  any  age,  disputed  Peter's  power,  Peter's  authority, 
and  separated  from  him,  was  cut  off  from  Peter  and  from  the 
Church ;  the  mitre  fell,  dishonored,  from  his  head  ;  and  he 
Decame  a  useless  member,  lopped  off  from  the  Church  of  God, 
without  power,  without  jurisdiction,  without  the  veneration,  or 
the  respect,  or  the  love  of  his  people.  Thus  has  it  ever  been  in 
times  gone  by.  The  Pope  of  Rome  commands  the  Church 
through  the  episcopate.  The  Pope  of  Rome  speaks  and  testi- 
fies to  the  Church's  doctrine  through  the  episcopate.  When- 
ever any  grave,  important  question,  touching  doctrine,  has  to 
be  decided,  the  Pope  of  Rome  has  always  called  the  episcopate 
about  him — not  that  he  could  not  decide,  but  that  he  might  sur- 
round his  decision  with  all  that  careful  and  prudent  examination, 
with  all  that  weight  of  universal  authority  over  the  world,  which 
would  bring  that  decision,  when  he  pronounced  it,  more  clearly 
and  more  directly  home  to  every  Catholic  mind.  And  faithful 
has  that  episcopate  been,  since  the  day  that  eleven  bishops 
met  Peter,  the  pope,  in  Jerusalem,  in  the  first  Council,  down 
to  the  day  when,  three  years  ago,  eight  hundred  Catholic 
archbishops  and  bishops  met  Peter's  successor  in  the  halls  of 
the  Vatican,  and  bowed  down  before  the  word  of  truth  upon  his 
lips. 

Such,  in  the  past,  as  history  attests — such  were  the  two  circles 
of  the  supreme  pastorate  and  supreme  jurisdiction  in  the  Church. 

The  Roman  empire,  as  you  all  know,  was  utterly  destroyed 
by  the  incursions  cf  the  barbarians,  in  the  fifth  century.    A  king, 

27 


4 18  The  Popes  Tiara. 

at  the  head  of  his  ferocious  army,  marched  on  Rome.  The  pope 
was  applied  to  by  the  terrified  citizens  ;  and  Leo  the  Great  went 
forth  to  meet  Attila,"  the  Scourge  of  God."  He  found  him  in 
the  midst  of  his  rude  barbarian  warriors,  on  the  banks  of  the 
Mincio.  He  found  him  exulting  in  the  strength  and  power  of 
his  irresistible  army.  He  found  him  surging  and  sweeping  on 
toward  Rome,  with  the  apparent  force  of  inevitable  destiny,  and 
with  his  outspread  wings  of  destruction.  He  found  him  in  the 
pride  and  in  the  supreme  passion  of  his  lustful  and  barbaric 
heart,  sworn  to  destroy  the  city  that  was  the  "  Mother  of  Na- 
tions." And,  as  he  was  in  the  very  sweep  of  his  conquest  and 
pride — unfriended  and  almost  alone,  having  nothing  but  the 
majesty  of  his  position  and  of  his  glorious  virtue  around  him, 
the  pope  said :  "  Hold  !  Rome  is  sacred,  and  your  feet  shall 
never  tread  upon  its  ancient  pavement !  Hold  !  Let  Rome  be 
spared  ! "  And,  whilst  he  was  speaking,  Attila  looked  upon 
the  face  of  the  man,  and  presently  he  saw  over  the  head  of  St. 
Leo,  the  pope,  two  angry  figures,  the  Apostles  St.  Peter  and 
St.  Paul,  with  fire  and  the  anger  of  God  beaming  from  their  eyes, 
and  with  drawn  swords  menacing  him.  And  even  as  the  angel 
stood  in  the  prophet's  path  of  old,  and  barred  his  progress,  so 
did  Peter  and  Paul  appear  in  mid-air  and  bar  the  barbarian. 
"  Let  us  return,"  said  he,  "  and  let  us  not  approach  this  terrible 
and  God-defended  city  of  Rome  !  "  Attila  fled  to  his  northern 
forests,  and  Leo  returned,  having  saved  the  existence  and  the 
blood  of  ancient  and  imperial  Rome  !  But  army  followed  army  , 
until,  at  length,  Alaric  conquered  and  sacked  the  city,  burned 
and  destroyed  it,  broke  up  all  its  splendor  and  all  its  glory, 
overran  and  destroyed  all  the  surrounding  provinces ;  and  so 
the  destruction  that  he  began  was  completed  a  few  years  later 
by  the  king  Odoacer,  who  wiped  away  the  last  vestige  of  the 
ancient  Roman  empire  !  Then,  my  friends,  all  Italy  was  a  prey 
to  and  was  torn  with  factions ;  covered  with  the  blood  of  the 
people.  There  was  no  one  to  save  them.  In  vain  did  they 
appeal  to  the  distant  eastern  emperor  at  Constantinople.  He 
laughed  at  their  misery,  and  abandoned  them  in  the  hour  of 
their  deepest  affliction  and  sorrow;  whilst  wave  after  wave  of 
barbaric  invasion  swept  over  the  fair  land,  until  life  became  a 
burden  too  intolerable  to  bear,  and  the  people  cried  out,  from 
their  breaking  hearts,  for  the  Pope  of  Rome  to  take  them  under 


The  Popes  Tiara.  419 

his  protection,  to  let  them  declare  him  king,  and  so  obtain  his 
safeguard  and  his  protection  for  their  lives  and  their  property. 
For  many  long  years  the  Pope  resisted  the  proffered  crown.  It 
grew  upon  his  brows  insensibly.  It  came  to  him  in  spite  of  him- 
self. We  know  that,  year  after  year,  each  successive  pope  was 
employed  sending  letters,  sending  messengers,  to  supplicate,  to 
implore  the  Christian  emperor  to  send  an  army  for  the  protec- 
tion of  Italy  ;  and  when  he  did  send  his  army,  they  were  worse, 
in  their  heretical  lawlessness,  more  tyrannical,  more  blood-thirsty 
over  the  unfortunate  people  of  Italy,  than  even  the  savage 
hordes  that  came  down  from  the  north  of  Europe.  And  so  it 
came  to  pass  that,  in  the  dire  distress  of  the  people,  the  pope 
was  obliged  to  accept  the  temporal  power  of  Rome,  and  of  some 
of  the  adjoining  provinces.  History  tells  us  that  he  might,  in 
that  day,  have  obtained,  if  he  wished  it,  the  sovereignty  over 
all  Italy.  They  would  have  been  only  too  happy  to  accept  him 
as  their  king ;  but  no  lust  of  power,  no  ambition  of  empire 
guided  him  ;  and  the  great  St.  Gregory  tells  us  that  he  was 
oppressed  with  the  cares  of  the  temporal  dominion,  and  that  it 
was  forced  upon  him  against  his  will. 

However,  now  the  crown  is  upon  his  head.  Now  he  is  ac- 
knowledged a  monarch — a  reigning  king  amongst  monarchs. 
And  now  let  us  see  what  was  the  purpose  of  God  in  thus  estab- 
lishing that  temporal  power  in  so  early  a  portion  of  the  history 
of  the  world's  civilization.  At  that  time,  there  was  no  law  in 
Europe.  The  nations  had  not  yet  settled  down  or  formed. 
Every  man  did  as  he  would.  The  kings  were  only  half-civilized, 
barbarous  men  recently  converted  to  Christianity,  wielding  enor- 
mous power,  and  only  too  anxious  to  make  that  power  the 
instrument  for  gratifying  every  most  terrible  passion  of  lust,  of 
pride,  of  ambition,  and  of  revenge.  Chieftains,  taking  to  them- 
selves the  titles  of  baron,  duke,  margrave,  and  so  on,  gathered 
around  them  troops,  bands  of  mercenaries,  and  preyed  on  the 
poor  people,  until  they  covered  the  whole  continent  with  con- 
fusion and  with  blood.  There  was  no  power  to  restrain  them. 
There  was  no  power  to  make  them  spare  their  people.  There 
was  no  voice  to  assert  the  cause  of  the  poor  and  the  oppressed, 
save  one ;  and  that  was  the  voice  of  the  monarch  who  wa? 
crowned  in  Rcme,  the  ancient  and  powerful  head  of  the  Catholic 
Church.     Whence  came  his  influence  or  his  power  over  them  ' 


420  The  Popes  Tiara. 

Ah,  it  came  from  this ;  that,  with  all  their  crimes,  they  still  had 
received  from  God  the  gift  of  faith,  and  they  knew — the  very 
worst  amongst  them  knew — as  history  tells  us,  that  when  the 
pope  spoke  it  was  the  echo  of  the  voice  of  God.  They  ac- 
knowledged it  as  a  supreme  power  over  their  consciences,  over 
their  actions — as  a  power  that  could  be  wielded  not  only  for 
their  salvation,  but  even  for  their  destruction,  by  the  terrible 
sentence  of  excommunication,  by  which  the  pope  could  cut  them 
off  from  the  Church.  The  faith  that  was  in  the  hearts  of  these 
rude  kings  was  also  disseminated  amongst  their  people ;  and 
so  strong  was  it,  that  the  moment  the  pope  denounced  or  ex- 
communicated any  monarch,  that  moment,  no  matter  how  great 
he  was  as  a  warrior,  as  a  statesman,  as  a  writer — that  moment 
the  people  shrank  from  him,  as  they  would  from  the  pest-stricken 
leper,  and  his  voice  was  no  longer  heard  as  an  authority  either 
on  the  battle-field  or  in  the  council-chamber.  Knowing  this, 
the  kings  were  afraid  of  the  pope.  Knowing  this,  the  people 
looked  up  to  the  pope ;  and  if  any  king  overtaxed  his  people, 
and  ground  them  to  the  earth,  or  if  any  king  violated  the  law 
of  eternal  justice  by  shedding  -the  blood  of  any  man  without 
just  cause,  or  if  any  king  declared  an  unjust  and  unnecessary 
war,  or  if  any  king  repudiated  his  lawful  wife,  and,  in  the  strength 
and  power  of  his  passion,  sought  to  scandalize  his  subjects,  and 
to  openly,  insult  and  outrage  the  law  of  God — the  people,  the 
soldiery,  society,  the  abandoned  and  injured  woman,  all  alike 
looked  up  to  and  appealed  to  the  Pope  of  Rome,  as  the  only 
power  that  could  sway  the  world,  and  strike  terror  into  the 
heart  of  the  greatest,  the  most  powerful,  and  the  most  lawless 
king  upon  the  earth. 

History — from  every  source  from  which  we  can  draw  it — tells 
us  what  manner  of  men  were  the  kings  and  dukes  and  rulers 
the  pope  had  to  deal  with.  What  manner  of  men  were  they  ? 
In  the  eleventh  century,  the  Emperor  Otho  invited  all  his 
nobility  to  a  grand  banquet ;  and  whilst  they  were  in  the  midst 
of  their  festivity,  in  came  one  of  the  king's  officers  with  a  long 
list  of  the  names  of  men  who  were  there  present ;  and  every 
man  whose  name  was  called  out,  had  to  rise  from  the  banquet 
and  walk  into  a  room  adjoining,  and  there  submit  to  an  unjust, 
a  cruel,  and  an  instantaneous  death  These  were  the  kind  of 
men  that  the  pope  had  to  deal  with.     Another  man  that  wc 


The  Popes  Tiara.  421 

lead  of  was  Lothair.  His  lustful  eye  fell  upon  a  beautiful 
woman  ;  and  he  instantly  puts  away  and  repudiates  his  virtuous 
and  honored  wife,  and  he  takes  to  him  this  concubine,  in  the 
face  of  the  world,  proclaiming,  or  suggesting  that  he  could  pro- 
claim, that,  because  he  was  an  emperor,  or  a  king,  he  was  at 
liberty  to  violate  the  *aw  of  God,  outrage  the  proprieties  of 
society,  scandalize  his  subjects,  and  take  liberties  with  their 
honor  and  with  their  integrity,  which  would  not  be  permitted  to 
any  other  man.  How  did  the  pope,  in  these  instances,  deal 
with  such  men  ?  How  did  he  use  the  temporal  power,  so  great 
and  so  tremendous,  with  which  God  and  society  had  invested 
him?  He  made  the  murderers  do  public  penance,  and  make 
restitution  to  the  families  of  those  whose  blood  they  had  shed. 
He  called  to  him  that  emperor,  Lothair  ;  he  brought  him  before 
him  ;  he  made  him,  in  a  public  church,  and  before  all  the  peo- 
ple, repudiate  that  woman  whom  he  had  taken  to  his  adulterous 
embrace ;  take  back  his  lawful  empress  and  queen,  pledge  to  her 
again,  by  solemn  oath,  before  all  the  people,  that  he  never  would 
love  another,  and  that  he  would  be  faithful  to  her  as  a  husband 
and  a  man,  until  the  hour  of  his  death.  Lothair  broke  his  oath 
— his  oath  taken  at  that  solemn  moment,  when  the  pope,  with 
the  ciborium  in  his  hand,  held  up  the  body  of  the  Lord,  and 
said,  "  Until  you  swear  fidelity  to  your  lawful  wife,  I  will  not 
place  the  Holy  Communion  upon  your  lips."  He  took  that  oath  ; 
he  broke  it ;  and  that  day  month — one  month  after  he  had  re- 
ceived that  communion — he  was  a  dead  man ;  and  the  whole 
world — the  whole  Christian  world — recognized  in  that  death  the 
vengeance  of  God  falling  upon  a  perjured  and  an  excommuni- 
cated sinner.  How  did  the  pope  vindicate,  by  his  temporal 
power  and  authority,  the  influence  that  it  gave  him  amongst  the 
kings  and  the  nations?  How  did  he  operate  upon  society? 
When  King  Philip,  of  France,  wished  to  repudiate  his  lawful 
wife,  and  take  another  in  her  stead,  the  pope  excommunicated 
him,  and  obliged  him,  in  the  face  of  the  world,  to  take  back, 
and  to  honor  with  his  love  and  with  his  fidelity  the  woman  whom 
he  had  sworn  before  the  altar  to  worship  and  to  protect  as  long 
as  she  lived.  How  did  the  pope  exercise  his  temporal  power, 
when  Spain  and  Portugal,  both  in  the  zenith  of  their  power, 
were  about  to  draw  the  sword,  and  to  deluge  those  fair  lands 
with  the  blood  of  the  people  ?     The  pope  stepped  in  and  said, 


422  The  Pope's  Tiara. 

"  No  war ;  there  is  no  necessity  for  war ;  there  is  no  justification 
for  war;  and  if  you  shed  the  blood  of  your  people,"  he  said  to 
both  kings,  '  I  will  cut  you  both  off,  and  fling  you,  excommuni- 
cated, out  of  the  Church."  Thus  did  he  preserve  the  rights — 
the  sacred  rights  of  marriage  ;  thus  did  he  preserve  the  honor, 
the  integrity,  the  position  of  the  Christian  woman — the  Christian 
mother,  who  is  the  source,  the  fountain-head  of  all  this  world's 
society,  and  the  one  centre  of  all  our  hopes.  Thus  did  he  save 
the  people,  curb  the  angry  passions  of  their  sovereigns ;  thus 
did  he  tell  the  king,  "  So  long  as  you  rule  justly,  so  long  as  you 
respect  the  rights  of  the  humblest  of  your  subjects,  I  will  uphold 
you ;  I  will  set  a  crown  upon  your  head,  and  I  will  fling  around 
you  all  the  authority,  and  all  the  jurisdiction,  and  sacredness  of 
your  monarchy.  I  will  preach  to  your  people  obedience,  loyalty, 
bravery,  and  love :  but  if  you  trample  upon  that  people's  rights, 
if  you  abuse  your  power  to  scandalize  them,  to  injure  them  in 
their  integrity,  in  their  conscience,  I  will  be  the  first  to  take  the 
crown  from  your  head,  and  to  declare  to  the  world  that  you  are 
unworthy  to  wear  it."  Modern  historians  say,  "  Oh,  we  admit 
all  this  ;  but  what  right  had  the  pope  to  do  it  ?"  What  right 
had  he  to  do  it  ?  What  right  ?  The  best  of  right.  Who  on 
this  earth  had  a  right  to  do  it,  if  not  the  man  who  represented 
Christ,  the  Originator  and  the  Saviour  of  the  world  ?  What 
right  had  he  to  do  it  ?  He  had  the  right  that  even  society  itself, 
and  the  people  gave  him  ;  for  they  cried  out  to  him,  "  Save  us 
from  our  kings  ;  save  us  from  injustice;  save  us  from  dishonor  ; 
and  we  will  be  loyal  and  true  as  long  as  our  leaders  and  our 
monarchs  are  worthy  of  our  loyalty  and  our  truth." 

Such,  in  the  past  history  of  the  world,  was  the  third  circle 
that  twines  round  the  papal  crown. 

Now,  passing  from  the  past  to  the  tiara  of  to-day,  what  do 
we  find  ?  We  find  a  man  in  Rome,  the  most  extraordinary,  in 
some  things,  of  all  those  that  ever  succeeded  to  the  supremacy 
of  the  Church,  and  in  the  office  of  St.  Peter— most  extraordi- 
nary, particularly  in  his  misfortunes— most  extraordinary  in  the 
length  of  his  reign,  for  he  is  the  only  Pope  that  has  outlived 
"  the  years  of  Peter  " — most  extraordinary  in  the  ingratitude 
of  the  world  towards  him,  and  the  patience  with  which  he  has 
borne  it — most  extraordinary  in  the  heroic  firmness  of  his  char- 
acter, and  in  the  singleness  of  his  devotion  to  his  God  and  to 


The  Popes   Tiara.  423 

the  spouse  of  God,  the  Church — Pius  IX.,  the  glorious  pontiff, 
the  man  whom  the  bitterest  enemies  of  the  Church,  whom  the 
most  foul-mouthed  infidels  of  the  day  are  obliged  to  acknowl- 
edge as  a  faithful  and  true  servant  of  the  Lord  his  God,  a  faith- 
ful ruler  of  the  Church,  and  a  man  from  whose  aged  countenance 
there  beams  forth  upon  all  who  see  him,  the  sweetness  and  the 
purity  of  Christ.  I  have  seen  him  in  the  halls  of  the  Vatican  ; 
I  have  seen  the  most  prejudiced  Protestant  ladies  and  gentle- 
men walk  into  that  audience-chamber  ;  I  have  seen  them  come 
forth,  their  eyes  streaming  with  tears  ;  I  have  seen  them  come 
forth,  entranced  with  admiration,  at  the  vision  of  sanctity  and 
venerableness  that  they  have  beheld  in  the  head  of  the  Cath- 
olic Church.  He  is  extraordinary  in  that  he  has  outlived  the 
years  of  Peter.  Well  do  I  remember  him,  as  he  stood  upon  the 
altar  five-and-twenty  years  ago,  fair  and  beautiful  in  his  youth- 
ful manhood.  Well  do  I  remember  the  heroic  voice  that  pealed 
like  a  clarion  over  the  mighty  square  of  St.  Peter's,  and  seemed 
as  if  it  was  an  angel  of  God  that  was  come  down  from  heaven, 
and,  in  a  voice  of  melodious  thunder,  was  flinging  a  Pentecost 
of  grace  and  blessing  over  the  people.  Five-and-twenty  years 
have  passed  away,  and  more.  Never  during  the  long  roll  of  pon- 
tiffs—  never  did  man  sit  upon  St.  Peter's  chair  so  long;  so 
that  it  even  passed  into  a  proverb,  that  no  pope  was  ever  to  see 
the  years  of  Peter.  That  proverb  is  falsified  in  Pius.  He  has 
passed  the  mystic  Rubicon  of  the  papal  age.  He  has  passed 
the  bounds  which  closed  around  all  his  predecessors.  He  has 
passed  the  years  of  Peter  upon  the  papal  throne.  Oh  !  may  he 
live,  if  it  be  God's  .will,  to  guide  the  Church,  until  he  has  doubled 
the  years  of  Peter.  He  is  singular  in  what  the  world  calls  his 
misfortunes ;  but  what,  to  me,  or  any  man  of  faith,  must  ab- 
solutely appear  as  a  startling  resemblance  to  the  last  week 
that  the  Lord,  our  Saviour,  spent  before  His  passion,  in  Je- 
rusalem. I  remember  Pius  IX.  surrounded  by  the  acclama- 
tions and  the  admiration  of  the  whole  world.  No  word  of 
praise  was  too  great  to  be  bestowed  upon  him.  He  was  the 
theme  of  every  popular  writer.  He  was  the  idol  of  the  people. 
The  moment  they  beheld  him  the  cry  came  forth  :  "  Viva, 
viva,  il  salvatore  dc  la  patria  !  "  Long  live  the  savior  of  his  peo- 
ple and  of  his  country !  To-day  he  must  not  show  Jiis  face 
in  the  very  streets  of  Rome ;  and  in  the  very  halls  of  the  de- 


424  The  Pope's  Tiara. 

serted  Vatican  he  hears  the  echoes  of  the  shouts  of  those  that 
cry,  "  Blessed  be  the  hand  that  shall  be  embrued  in  thy  blood, 
O  Pius !  "  Now,  I  ask  any  man  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  what 
has  this  man  done?  What  can  the  greatest  enemy  of  the  pope 
lay  his  hand  upon,  and  say,  he  has  done  so  and  so,  and  he  has 
deserved  this  change  of  popular  friendship,  and  of  popular 
opinion  ?  The  greatest  enemy  that  the  pope  has  on  this  earth  is 
not  able  to  bring  a  single  charge  against  him,  during  these 
twenty-five  years,  to  account  for  that  change  of  opinion.  What 
has  changed  blessings  into  curses  ?  What  has  changed  homage 
and  veneration  into  contempt  and  obloquy?  There  is  no  ac- 
counting for  it.  It  is  like  the  change  that  came  over  the  people 
of  Jerusalem,  who,  on  Palm  Sunday,  cried,  "  Hosanna  to  the 
Son  of  David,"  and  on  Good  Friday  morning  cried,  "Give  Him 
to  us  !  We  will  tear  Him  to  pieces  and  crucify  Him !  "  There 
is  no  accounting  for  it.  Has  he  oppressed  the  Roman  people  ? 
No.  I  lived  many  years  in  Rome  under  his  pontificate.  There 
was  no  taxation  worth  speaking  of;  there  was  no  want,  no 
misery.  There  was  plenty  of  education  for  the  children,  plenty 
of  employment,  plenty  of  diversion.  There  was  no  forcible 
conscription  of  the  youth,  to  send  them  into  some  vile  cess- 
pool of  corruption,  in  the  shape  of  a  barrack,  or  to  hunt  them 
out  to  the  battle-field,  to  be  mown  down  and  flung  into  blood- 
stained graves.  No ;  every  man  possessed  his  house  and  his 
soul  in  peace.  There  was  prosperity  in  the  land.  And  over  all 
this  there  was  the  hand  ever  waving  a  blessing,  and  a  voice 
invoking  benediction  and  grace  for  his  people.  Whence  came 
the  change?  No  man  can  tell.  Therefore,  I  say,  this  man 
is  extraordinary  in  his  misfortunes,  inasmuch  as  they  bring 
out,  in  the  most  striking  and  terrible  manner,  his  resem- 
blance to  his  crucified  Lord  and  Saviour,  the  Head  of  the 
Church.  He  is  singular  in  the  magnificence  of  his  charac- 
ter. The  student  of  history  may  read  the  lives  of  all  the  popes 
that  have  come  down  from  Peter  to  Pius,  and  I  make  this  asser- 
tion, that  there  is  not  a  single  feature  of  grandeur  or  mag- 
nificence in  the  character  of  any  one  of  these  popes,  that  does 
not  shine  out,  concentrated,  in  the  character  of  Pius  IX.  We 
admire  the  missionary  zeal  of  St.  Gregory  the  Great,  of  St. 
Celestine.  Pius  the  Ninth  has  sent  from  under  his  own  hand, 
and  from  under  his  own  blessing,  men  who  have  honored   his 


The  Popes  Ttara.  425 

pontificate,  as  well  as  the  Church,  their  mother,  by  shedding 
their  blood  in  martyrdom,  for  the  faith.  From  under  his  hand 
have  gone  forth  those  holy  ones  who  have  languished  in  the 
dungeons  of  China  and  of  Japan.  From  under  his  hand  have 
gone  forth  those  heroic  Jesuit  sons  of  St.  Ignatius,  that  have 
lifted  the  standard  of  the  Cross,  and  uplifted  the  name — the 
name  which  forms  their  crown  and  their  glory,  even  in  the  eyes 
of  men,  unto  the  farthest  nations  of  the  earth.  If  we  admire 
the  love  of  Rome  that  shines  forth  in  the  character  of  St.  Leo 
the  Great,  who  was  the  pope  amongst  them  all  that  ever  loved 
Rome  and  the  Romans  so  tenderly  as  the  heart  of  Pius  IX.  loved 
them  ?  When  he  came  to  the  throne  there  were  Romans  in 
exile,  and  there  were  Romans  in  prison.  The  very  first  act  of 
the  pontiff  was  to  fling  open  the  prison-doors,  and  to  say  to 
these  children  of  misfortune,  "  Come  forth,  Italians  ;  breathe  the 
pure  air  and  feast  your  eyes  upon  the  loveliness  of  your  native 
land."  There  were  Romans  who  were  in  exile  :  he  sent  them 
the  message  of  manumission,  and  of  pardon,  and  of  love,  in 
whatever  land  they  were,  and  said,  "  Come  back  to  me  ; — come 
back  and  sit  down  in  peace  and  in  contentment  under  my  em- 
pire ;  for,  O  Rome,  and  children  of  Rome,  I  love  you."  This 
was  the  language  and  these  were  the  emphatic  accents  of  the 
glorious  Pius  IX.  Where  was  the  pope  who  ever  embellished 
Rome  as  he  did  ?  I  lived  in  Rome  during  the  first  year  of  his 
pontificate  :  I  lived  there  in  the  last.  I  might  almost  say  that 
he  found  it  a  city  of  brick,  and  that  he  handed  it  over  to 
Victor  Emmanuel,  the  robber,  a  city  of  polished  and  shining 
marble.  Orphanages,  hospitals,  public  schools,  model  lodging- 
houses,  public  baths  and  lavatories,  splendid  fountains  ;  every- 
thing that  the  Roman  citizen  could  require,  either  for  his  wants 
or  for  his  luxury,  or,  if  you  will,  his  pleasure,  the  magnificent 
hand  of  Pius  IX.  provided ;  for,  for  the  last  five-and-twenty 
years,  that  hand  has  never  ceased  in  beautifying  and  embellish- 
ing his  loved  and  imperial  Rome.  We  admire  the  glorious 
firmness,  the  magnificent,  rock-like  endurance  of  St.  Gregory 
VII.,  whom  history  knows  by  the  name  of  Hildebrand  ;  how  he 
stood  in  the  path  of  the  impious  German  emperors.  Like  a 
rock  against  which  the  tide  dashes,  but  dashes  in  vain — so  did 
he  stand  to  stem  the  torrent  of  their  tyranny  and  of  their  cor- 
ruption.    We  admire  Gregory  VII.,  when,  saying  Mass  before 


\26  The  Popes  Tiara. 

the  emperor,  he  took  the  Blessed  Eucharist  into  his  hands  and 
turned  round,  with  the  Holy  Communion,  and  said,  "  O  majes- 
ty, I  am  about  to  give  you  the  Holy  Body  of  Jesus  Christ. 
I  swear  before  my  God,"  said  the  pope,  "  in  whose  presence  I 
now  stand,  that  I  have  never  acted  save  for  the  Church  which 
He  loves,  and  for  the  happiness  of  His  people.  Now  O 
King  !  swear  thou  the  same  ;  and  I  will  put  God  upon  thy  lips!" 
The  emperor  hung  his  head  and  said,  "  I  cannot  swear  it,  for 
it  would  not  be  true ;"  and  the  Holy  Communion  was  denied 
him.  We  admire  that  magnificent  memory  in  the  Church  of 
God,  which  upheld  the  rights  of  Peter  and  of  the  Church 
against  king  and  kaiser;  but,  I  ask  you,  does  not  the  image  of  the 
sainted  Gregory  VII.  rise  before  our  eyes  from  out  the  recesses 
of  history,  and  come  forth  into  the  full  blaze  of  the  present 
generation  in  the  magnificent  constancy  and  firmness  of  Pius 
IX.,  the  Pope  of  Rome  ?  It  was  a  question  of  only  giving  up 
a  little  child  that  was  baptized  into  the  Christian  Church,  and 
engrafted  by  baptism  upon  Christ,  our  Lord, — a  little  child 
that  was  engrafted  unto  the  Son  of  God  and  His  Church,  had 
received  the  rites,  and  claimed,  in  justice,  to  come  to  know  and 
love  that  God  on  whom  he  had  been  engrafted  by  baptism.  All 
the  powers  of  the  world — all  the  dukes  and  kings  and  govern- 
ments in  Europe — came  around  the  pope,  and  said,  "You 
must  give  up  that  child  ;  he  must  be  taught  to  blaspheme  and 
to  hate  that  Lord  upon  whom  he  has  been  engrafted  by  baptism. 
He  must  not  belong  to  Christ,  or  the  Church,  even  though  he  is 
baptized  into  it."  And  they  asked  the  pope,  by  the  surrender 
of  that  child,  to  proclaim  the  surrender  of  that  portion  of  the 
Church's  <aith  that  tells  us,  on  the  authority  of  the  inspired 
Apostle,  that,  by  baptism,  like  a  wild  olive  branch  let  into  a 
good  tree,  we  are  let  into  Jesus  Christ.  They  sent  their  fleets 
to  Civita  Vecchia ;  they  pointed  their  cannon  against  the  Vati- 
can, and  told  the  pope  that  his  existence  and  his  life  depended 
upon  his  giving  up  that  child.  And  he  declared,  in  the  face  of 
the  world,  and  pronounced  that  word  which  will  shine  in  charac- 
ters of  glory  on  his  brow  in  heaven — he  pronounced  the  im- 
mortal non  possumus — "  I  will  not  do  it,  because  I  cannot  do 
it !"  If  he  wants  an  epitaph,  the  most  glorious  language  that 
need  be  written  on  his  tomb  would  be  "  Here  lies  the  man 
whom  the  whole  world  tried  to  coerce  to  commit  a  sin  ;  and 


The  Popes  Tiara.  427 

who  answered  the  whole  world  '  non  possumus  ' — I  cannot  do 
it."  This  is  the  man  that  to-day  wears,  and  so  gloriously  wears, 
the  time-honored  tiara  that  has  come  down  to  him  through 
eighteen  hundred  years  of  suffering  and  of  glory,  of  joy  and  of 
sorrow. 

The  third  circlet — that  of  the  temporal  power — for  a  time  19 
gone.  There  is  a  robber,  who  calls  himself  a  king,  seated  now 
in  the  Quirinal,  in  Rome.  He  had  not  the  decency  to  tell  the  pope 
that  he  was  coming  to  plunder  him.  He  had  not  the  decency, 
when  he  did  come  to  Rome,  to  build  a  house  for  himself;  but  he 
must  take  one  of  the  old  man's  houses.  It  was  a  question  of  bring- 
ing his  women  into  these,  the  pope's  own  chambers,  which  were 
always  like  sanctuaries,  where  ladies  generally  are  not  permitted 
to  come  in.  There  was  a  kind  of  tradition  of  holiness  about  them, 
and  exclusiveness  in  this  way ;  and  he  brings  his  queen  and  his 
"  ladies  all "  to  these  chambers,  where,  if  they  had  a  particle  of 
womanly  decency,  and  delicacy,  and  propriety,  they  would  not 
enter.  I  do  not  believe  there  is  a  lady  here  listening  to  me, 
who  would  walk  into  the  Quirinal  to-morrow,  even  if  she  was  in 
Rome.  The  third  circlet,  for  a  time,  is  plucked  from  the  pope's 
brow ;  and,  instead  of  a  crown  of  gold,  the  aged  man  has  bent 
down  and  has  received,  from  the  hands  of  ungrateful  Italy,  the 
present  of  a  crown  of  thorns.  But,  as  if  to  compensate  him  for 
the  temporary  absence  of  the  crown  of  temporal  rule ;  as  if  to 
make  up  to  him  for  that  which  has  been  plucked,  for  a  time 
only,  from  the  tiara ;  the  Almighty  God  has  brought  out,  in  our 
age,  upon  the  pontificate  of  Pius  IX.,  the  other  two  circlets, 
that  of  supreme  Pastorate  and  supreme  Bishop  of  the  Church, 
with  an  additional  lustre  and  glory  that  they  never  had  before. 
Never,  in  the  history  of  the  Catholic  Church,  have  the  faithful, 
all  the  world  over,  listened  with  so  much  reverence,  with  so 
much  love,  with  so  much  faith  and  joy,  as  the  Catholics  of  the 
world,  to-day,  listen  to  the  voice  of  Pius  IX.,  in  Rome.  Never 
have  the  bishops  of  the  Catholic  Church  shown  such  unanimity, 
such  unity  of  thought,  such  profound  and  magnificent  obedience. 
Never  has  the  episcopate  of  the  Catholic  Church  so  loudly, 
emphatically,  and  unitedly  upheld  the  privileges  and  the  glories 
of  its  head,  as  the  episcopacy  of  this  day  has  upheld  the  glory 
of  the  papacy  of  Pius  IX.  And  it  is  no  small  subject  of  praise 
and  of  thankfulness  to  us,  that  when  eight  hundred  men  amongst 


428  The  Pope  s  Ttara. 

them,  loaded  with  tl  e  responsibility  of  the  Church-  -eight  hun- 
dred men,  representing  all  that  the  Church  had  of  perfection, 
of  the  priesthood,  and  of  jurisdiction  and  power — when  these 
eight  hundred  men  were  gathered  round  the  throne  of  the 
august  pontiff,  they  presented  to  the  world,  in  its  hostility,  in 
its  infidelity,  in  its  hatred,  so  firm  a  front,  that  they  were  all  of 
one  mind,  of  one  soul ;  one  voice  only  was  heard  from  the  lips 
of  these  eight  hundred  ;  and  that  voice  said,  "  Tu  es  Petrus  !  " 
O  Pius!  Peter  speaks  in  thee,  and  Christ,  the  Lord,  speaks  in 
Peter.  One  of  the  most  honored  of  these  eight  hundred — one 
of  the  foremost  in  dignity  and  in  worth — now  sits  here  in  the 
midst  of  you,  the  bishop  and  pastor  of  your  souls.  He  can  bear 
living  witness  to  the  fact  which  I  have  stated.  Out  of  the 
resources  of  his  learned  mind — out  of  his  Roman  experience  as 
an  archbishop — will  he  tell  you — out  of  his  historic  lore  will  he 
tell  you — that  never  was  the  Church  of  God  more  united,  both 
in  the  priesthood  and  episcopacy,  and  in  the  people  ;  more 
united  in  ranks  cemented  by  faith,  and  strengthened  by  love, 
than  the  Christian  and  Catholic  world  to-day  is,  around  the 
glorious  throne  of  the  uncrowned  pontiff,  Pius  IX. 

And  what  shall  be  the  future  of  this  tiara  ?  We  know  that 
the  crown  of  universal  pastorship  and  the  crown  of  supremacy 
are  his ;  that  no  man  can  take  from  him  that  which  has  grown 
unto  him  under  the  hand  of  Jesus  Christ.  We  know  that  he 
may  be  in  exile  to-morrow — that  he  may  be  without  a  home, 
persecuted  and  hunted  from  one  city  to  another.  But,  we 
know  that  God  and  the  Church  of  God  have  set  their  seal  upon 
him,  and  their  sign  that  no  other  man  upon  this  earth  can  wear, 
namely,  that  he  is  the  head  of  the  Church,  and  the  infallible 
guide  of  the  infallible  flock  of  Christ.  Will  his  temporal 
power  be  restored  ?  Will  the  third  circle  ever  again  shine  upon 
that  tiara?  It  is  a  singular  fact  that  the  only  man  who  can 
speak  of  the  future  with  certainty  is  the  Catholic.  Every  other 
man,  when  he  comes  to  discuss  any  subject  of  the  future,  must 
say,  "  Well,  in  all  probability,  perhaps,  it  may  come  to  pass ;  it 
may  be  so  and  so  ;  "  but  the  Catholic  man,  when  he  comes  to 
speak  of  the  future,  says :  "  Such  and  such  things  are  to  come  ;" 
he  knows  it  as  sure  as  fate.  There  is  not  a  man  amongst  us 
that  does  not  know  that  this  usurpation  of  Rome  is  only  a  ques- 
tion of  a  few  days — only  a  question  of   a  few  days — that  the 


The  Popes   Tiara.  429 

knavish  king  may  remain  this  year,  next  year  ;  perhaps  a  few 
years  more  ;  but  as  sure  as  Rome  is  seated  upon  her  seven  hills, 
so  surely  will  the  third  circle  of  the  tiara  be  there  ;  so  surely 
must  there  be  a  Pope-king  there.  And  why?  For  the  simplest 
of  all  reasons  :  that  her  empire,  or  her  temporal  power,  is  very 
convenient,  and  very  useful,  and  very  necessary  for  the  Church 
of  God  ;  and  that  whatever  is  convenient,  or  useful,  or  neces- 
sary for  her,  God  in  Heaven  will  provide  for  her.  That  tem- 
poral power  will  return  as  it  returned  in  the  times  of  old,  be- 
cause it  is  good  for  the  Church,  and  because  the  world  cannot 
get  on  without  it.  The  hand  that  has  held  the  reins  of  society 
for  a  thousand  years  and  more — the  hand  that  has  held  the  curb 
tight  upon  the  passions,  and  the  ambition,  and  the  injustice  of 
kings — the  hand  that  has  held,  with  a  firm  grasp,  the  reins  that 
govern  the  people,  is  as  necessary  in  the  time  to  come,  as  it 
was  in  the  times  past ;  and,  therefore,  God  will  keep  that  hand 
that  holds  the  reins  of  the  world,  a  royal  hand.  Hence  it  is 
that  we  Catholics  have  not  the  slightest  apprehension,  the 
slightest  fear,  about  this.  We  know  that,  even  as  our  Divine 
Lord  and  Master  suffered  in  Jerusalem,  and  was  buried  and  re- 
mained for  three  days  in  the  grave,  and  undeniably  rose  again, 
all  the  more  glorious  because  of  His  previous  suffering — so,  in 
like  manner,  do  we  know  that  out  of  the  grave  of  his  present 
tribulation — out  of  the  trials  of  to-day,  Pius  IX.,  or  Pius  the 
Ninth's  successor — for  the  pope  lives  forever — will  rise  more 
glorious  in  his  empire  over  the  world,  and  in  his  influence 
and  power,  all  the  more  glorious  for  having  passed  through 
the  tribulations  of  the  present  time.  But,  my  friends,  just  as 
the  most  precious  hours  in  the  life  of  our  Lord  were 
the  hours  of  His  suffering — just  as  that  was  the  particular 
time  when  every  loving  heart  came  to  Him  —  the  time 
when  the  highest  privileges  were  conferred  upon  mankind, 
namely  to  wipe  the  sweat  and  blood  off  His  brow  ;  to  take 
the  cross  off  His  shoulders;  to  lift  Him  from  His  falling,  and 
His  faintness  upon  the  earth ;  so,  also,  the  present  is  the  hour 
of  our  highest  privilege  as  Catholics,  when  we  can  put  out  our 
hand  to  cheer,  to  console,  to  help  our  Holy  Father  the  Pope. 
This  hall  is  crowded  ;  and,  from  my  priestly,  Catholic,  and 
Irish  heart,  I  am  proud  of  it.  It  is  easy  to  acclaim  a  man  when 
he  is  "  on  the  top  of  the  wheel,"  as  they  say,  and  everything  is 


430  The  Popes  Tiara. 

going  well  with  him.  It  is  easy  to  feel  proud  of  the  pope  when 
the  pope  shines  out,  acknowledged  by  all  the  kings  of  the  earth. 
Ah,  but  it  is  the  triumph  of  Catholic  and  of  Irish  faith,  to 
stand  up  for  him,  to  uphold  him  before  the  world,  and,  if  neces- 
sary, to  fight  for  him,  when  the  whole  world  is  against  him. 
Therefore,  I  hope,  that  when  the  proceeds  of  this  lecture  are  sent 
to  the  man,  who,  although  poor  and  in  prison  to-day,  has  kept  his 
honor,  has  kept  his  nobility  of  character ;  and,  when  millions 
were  put  before  him  by  the  robber-king,  said  he  would  not 
dirty  his  hands  by  touching  them  ;  but  when  the  honest  and  the 
clean  money  of  to-night  shall  be  sent  to  him,  I  hope  that  some 
one  of  those  officials  here  will  also  inform  him  that  that  money  was 
sent  to  him  with  cheers  and  with  applause,  and  from  loving 
and  generous  Irish  Catholic  hearts  ;  that  it  was  given  as  Ireland 
always  has  given  when  she  gave — given  with  a  free  hand  and  a 
loving  and  generous  heart.  As  a  great  author  and  writer  of 
our  day  said,  "I  would  rather  get  a  cold  potato  from  an  Irish- 
man, than  a  guinea  in  gold  and  a  dinner  of  beef  from  an  Eng- 
lishman." 

And  now,  my  friends,  I  have  only  to  state  to  you  that,  from 
my  heart,  I  thank  you  for  your  presence  here  this  evening.  I 
know  that  the  sacredness  of  the  cause  brought  you  here  as 
Catholics.  I  flatter  myself,  a  little,  that,  perhaps,  some  of  you 
came,  because  when  I  was  last  here  before  you,  I  told  you,  in 
all  sincerity,  that  my  heart  and  soul  were  in  this  lecture,  and 
that  I  would  take  it  as  a  personal  favor  if  the  hall  were  crowded 
this  evening.  The  hall  is  crowded :  and  I  am  grateful  to  you 
for  your  attendance,  and  your  patience  in  listening  to  me,  and 
for  the  encouragement  that  you  gave  me  by  your  applause. 


GOOD  WORKS  WITH  FAITH  NECES- 
SARY TO  SALVATION. 


[Delivered  at  the  Church  of  St.  Vincent  Ferrer,  May  2d,  1872.J 
"  And  to  the  disciple  Jesus  said :  Son,  behold  thy  mother." 

EARLY  beloved:  On  last  evening  I  endeavored  to 
describe  to  you  the  beautiful  harmony  and  analogy 
between  the  things  of  nature  and  the  spiritual  things 
of  grace,  so  admirably  developed  and  illustrated  in  the 
dedication  of  this  month  of  May  to  the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary ; 
and  I  told  you  then  that  on  this  evening  I  would  endeavor  to 
unfold  to  you  the  place  and  the  position  which  the  mother  of 
our  Divine  Lord  holds  in  the  plan  of  man's  redemption.  Now, 
there  are  two  great  classes  that  occupy  the  world  to-day,  of  men 
who  differ  in  their  apprehension  of  the  design  of  God  as  revealed 
in  the  redemption  of  man.  The  first  are  those  who  say,  or 
who  seem  to  say,  that  we  did  not  stand  in  need  of  redemption 
at  all.  They  deny  the  fall  of  man — they  deny  the  inherent  sin- 
fulness of  man.  Consequently,  they  deny  the  necessity  of  the 
incarnation  of  the  Almighty  God.  They  deny  the  necessity  of 
sacraments  or  their  efficacy,  and  they  say  that  man  has,  within 
himself,  in  the  very  elements  of  his  nature — that  by  the  mere 
development  of  his  natural  powers  he  may  attain  to  all  the  pur- 
poses of  God,  and  to  the  full  perfection  of  His  being.  Such,  for 
instance,  is  the  doctrine  of  the  wide-spread  sect  of  Socinius. 
Such,  in  a  great  measure,  are  the  ideas  of  a  number  of  wide- 
spread  sects  —  the  Unitarians,  Humanitarians,  believers  in 
human  nature  alone — Progressists,  men  who  look  to  fhis  world, 
and  to  its  scientific  attainments,  and  to  its  great  developments, 
as  effected  by  man  and  reflected  in  the  spirit  and  in  the  intelli- 


432  Good  Works  with  Faith 

gence  of  man,  for  all  the  perfection  of  humanity  and  of  society 
This  class  takes  in  all  those  who  refuse  any  definite  form  of  re- 
ligion at  all — who  put  away  from  them  all  idea  of  the  necessity 
of  any  fixed  faith.  This  idea  represents  the  vast  multitude  of 
mankind,  found  everywhere,  and  nowhere  more  numerous  than 
here,  in  this  very  land ;  the  men  who,  with  the  most  accurate 
ideas  on  business,  on  commercial  transactions,  on  law,  on 
politics,  etc.,  are  only  found  to  be  following,  in  an  inaccurate 
comprehension,  careless,  indefinite  and  not  only  ignorant  of,  but 
willing  to  be  ignorant  of  every  specific  form  of  defined  faith,  or 
belief  in  revelation  at  all.  They  do  not  give  enough  to  God  in 
their  thoughts,  in  their  minds,  in  the  acknowledgments  of  their 
souls,  in  this  question  of  man's  redemption.  There  are,  on  the 
other  hand,  a  vast  number  who  profess  Christianity,  and  who,  if 
you  will,  give  too  much  to  God  in  this  matter  of  redemption  ; 
who  say  that  when  the  Son  of  God  became  man,  he  effected  the 
redemption  of  mankind  so  completely,  that  he  wiped  away  the 
world's  sin  so  utterly,  that  all  that  we  have  to  do  is  to  lean  upon 
Him — to  govern  ourselves  by  faith,  with  His  justification,  His 
merits,  and  that  without  any  concurrent  labor  of  our  own,  without 
any  work  on  our  part,  but  only  the  easy  operation  of  "  believing 
on  Christ,"  as  they  put  it,  that  we  can  be  saved.  And  hence 
we  hear  so  much  about  justification  by  faith ;  and  hence  we 
hear  so  much  rifjald  abuse  of  the  Catholic  sacraments — of  fast- 
ing, of  the  Holy  Mass,  of  all  the  exterior  usages  and  sacramental 
appliances  of  the  Holy  Catholic  Church  ;  all  mocked  at,  all 
derided  as  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  all  true  religion  ;  which  simply 
is,  according  to  them,  to  believe  with  all  your  soul  in  Jesus 
Christ,  in  His  redemption,  in  His  atonement,  and  all  sins  are 
cleansed.  A  man  may  have  a  thousand  deeds  of  murder  upon 
his  soul ;  a  man  may  have  loaded  himself  with  every  most  hide- 
ous form  of  impurity ;  a  man  may  have  injured  his  neighbor  on 
the  right  hand  and  on  the  left,  and  may  have  enriched  himself 
upon  the  spoils  of  his  dishonesty — there  is  no  law  either  of  the 
relations  of  God  to  man,  or  man  to  his  fellow-man — but  only 
"believe  on  God  and  you  are  saved."  Hence  we  hear  of  so 
many  who  go  out  to  these  camp-meetings  and  these  prayer- 
meetings,  and  there  work  themselves  into  a  state  of  excitement, 
and  say,  "  Oh,  I  have  found  the  Lord  Jesus,  I  have  found  him !  " 
There  is  no  more  question  about  that — they  are  confirmed  ;  they 


Necessary  to  Salvation  433 

are  the  elect ;  they  are  the  perfect ;  they  are  the  regenerated, 
and  there  is  an  end  to  all  their  previous  sins.  They  need  not 
shed  a  tear  of  sorrow,  but  only  believe  on  the  Lord.  They  need 
not  make  an  act  of  contrition,  they  need  not  mortify  their 
bodies,  but  only  believe  on  the  Lord.  It  is  a  smooth  and  a  very 
easy,  a  remarkably  easy  doctrine,  and,  if  it  only  led  to  heaven, 
it  would  be  indeed  a  sweet  and  an  easy  way,  by  which  we  could 
enjoy  ourselves  here  as  long  as  we  like  in  the  indulgence  of  every 
vile  passion,  and  afterwards  turn  and  lean  upon  the  Lord,  and 
thus  get  into  heaven.  Between  these  two  extremes,  the  extreme 
of  unbelief  and  the  mistaken  view  and  zeal  of  what  appears  to 
be  an  over-fervent  faith,  but  which  in  reality  is  not  faith  at  all — 
because  faith  means  the  apprehension  of  the  truth,  and  not  a 
distorted  view  of  this  text  or  that,  of  Scripture — between  these 
two  stands  the  Holy  Catholic  Church  of  God,  and  she  tells  us,  as 
against  the  first  class,  the  Humanitarians,  that  we  are  a  fallen  race, 
that  sin  is  in  our  blood,  that  sin  is  in  our  nature,  that  that  nature 
is  deformed,  disfigured  by  sin  ;  that  the  very  fountain-head  of  our 
humanity  was  corrupted  in  Adam,  and  just  as,  if  you  disturb 
the  fountain-head  of  the  stream,  or  if  you  poison  it,  the  whole 
current  that  flows  from  it  is  muddy  and  disturbed,  or  poisonous, 
so  the  whole  stream  of  our  humanity  that  flows  from  the  sin  of 
Adam  is  tainted  and  disfigured  and  poisoned  by  sin ;  con- 
sequently, that  we  stood  in  need  of  a  Redeemer  who  would 
atone  for  our  sins,  and  would,  by  sacrificing  himself,  and  making 
himself  a  victim,  wipe  away  the  sin  of  mankind.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  Holy  Catholic  Church  teaches  us,  as  against  the 
second  class,  that  two  wills,  two  actions,  are  necessary  for  man's 
salvation,  namely,  the  will  of  God,  and  the  will  of  the  man  who 
is  to  be  saved  ;  that  we  must  unite  our  will  with  God,  and  de- 
termine to  be  saved,  otherwise  that  will  of  God,  which  is  never 
wanting,  will  not  alone  avail  for  the  sanctification  or  the  salvation 
of  any  man  ;  that  we  must  not  only  will  with  God  our  salvation, 
but  that  we  must  work  with  God  in  the  work  of  our  salvation  ; 
according  to  the  words  of  St.  Paul,  "  In  fear  and  trembling  we 
must  work  out  our  salvation."  That  although  the  gift  of  sal- 
vation comes  from  God,  and  is  His  gift,  yet  that  He  will  not 
give  it  except  to  the  man  who  strains  himself  to  lay  hold  of  it, 
according  to  that  other  word  of  the  Apostle,  "  Lay  hold  of 
eternal  life."     God  is  amply  sufficient  to  save  us  ;  God  is  willing 

28 


434  Good  Works  with  Faith 

to  save  us.  We  can  only  be  saved  by  His  graces,  but  if  we  do 
not  with  our  hands  lay  hold  of  these  graces,  and  correspond 
with  them,  there  is  no  salvation  for  us.  Just  as  if  you  saw  a 
man  fallen  into  the  sea,  and  you  threw  him  a  rope,  by  which,  if 
he  lay  hold  of  it,  you  can  take  him  into  your  boat,  or  land  him 
on  to  the  land ;  you  are  willing  to  save  him,  you  are  anxious  to 
save  him  ;  you  have  put  actually  into  his  hands  the  means  by 
which  he  may  be  saved,  but  if  he  refuses  to  lay  hold  of  that 
measure  of  salvation,  if  he  refuses  the  gift  that  you  offer  him,  of 
life,  you  cannot  force  him,  and  so  he  is  lost  by  his  own  fault. 
Now,  as  it  requires  for  the  salvation  of  every  man  amongst  us, 
two  wills,  two  distinct  actions,  the  will  and  the  action  of  God, 
our  will  and  our  action  corresponding  with  Him,  so,  also,  in  the 
redemption  two  things  were  necessary  in  order  that  man  might 
be  saved.  First  of  all,  dearly  beloved,  it  was  necessary  to  find 
some  victim,  whose  very  act  was  of  such  infinite  value  in  the 
sight  of  God,  that  he  might  be  available  for  the  salvation  of 
mankind,  and  capable  of  atoning  to  God's  infinite  honor  and 
glory,  which  was  outraged  by  sin.  A  victim  must  be  found 
whose  very  act  is  of  infinite  value,  and  why  ?  Because  the  atone- 
ment which  he  comes  to  make  is  infinite  ;  because  no  creature 
of  God,  acting  as  a  creature,  with  a  finite  merit  and  power,  and 
the  circumscribed  action  of  a  creature,  can  ever  atone  to  the 
Almighty  God  for  sin,  which  is  an  infinite  evil.  The  first  thing,, 
therefore,  that  is  necessary,  is  an  infinite  power  of  atonement,  an 
infinite  power  of  merit  in  the  victim  for  man's  sin.  The  second 
thing  that  is  necessary  for  redemption  is  a  willingness  and  a 
capability  on  the  part  of  their  atoner  to  suffer,  and  by  his  suf- 
ferings, and  by  his  sacrifices,  and  by  his  atonement,  wash  away 
the  sin.  Where  shall  this  victim  of  infinite  merit,  yet  a  victim, 
be  found  ?  If  we  demand  the  first  condition,  namely,  the  power 
of  restoring  to  God  that  infinite  honor  and  glory  which  was 
outraged  by  sin,  if  we  demand  this,  we  may  seek  in  vain  through- 
out all  the  ranks  of  God's  creatures;  we  may  mount  to  the 
heaven  of  heavens  and  seek  throughout  the  choirs  of  God's  holy 
angels,  we  shall  never  find  him,  because  such  a  one  is  seated 
upon  the  throne  of  God  himself.  God  alone  is  infinite  ir  His 
sanctity,  in  His  graces,  and,  if  He  will  consent  to  be  a  victim, 
in  His  power  of  atonement,  God  alone  can  do  it.  Man  could 
place  the  cause  there,  man  could  commit  the  sin  ;  the  hand  of 


Necessary  to  Salvation.  435 

God  alone  can  take  that  sin  away  by  atonement ;  and  yet. 
strange  to  say,  dearly  beloved  brethren,  God  alone  cannot  doit, 
because  God  alone  cannot  furnish  us  with  the  second  privilege 
of  the  atoner,  namely,  the  character  of  a  victim.  How  can  Qod 
suffer?  How  can  God  be  moved?  How  can  God  bleed  and 
die  ?  He  is  happiness,  glory,  honor,  and  greatness  itself.  How 
can  He  be  humble  who  is  above  all  things  ?  Infinitely  glorious 
in  His  own  essence.  How  can  He  be  grieved  who  is  the 
essential  happiness  of  heaven?  He  must  come  down  from 
heaven,  and  He  must  take  a  nature  capable  of  suffering  and 
pain,  and  of  the  shedding  of  blood  ;  he  must  take  a  nature 
capable  of  being  abused  and  crushed  and  victimized,  or  else 
the  world  can  never  find  its  Redeemer  ;  yet  he  must  take  that 
nature  so  that  everything  that  he  does  as  a  victim,  and  every- 
thing that  he  suffers  as  a  victim  in  that  nature,  must  be  attributed 
to  God.  It  must  be  the  action  of  God  ;  it  must  be  the  suffering 
of  God,  or  else  it  never  can  be  endowed  with  the  infinite  value 
which  is  necessary  for  the  atonement  of  man's  sin.  Behold, 
then,  the  two  great  things  that  we  must  find,  that  God  found  in 
the  plan  of  His  redemption  ;  God  furnished  one,  the  earth  fur- 
nished the  other;  God  furnished  the  infinite  merit,  the  infinite 
grace,  the  infinite  value  of  the  atonement  in  His  own  divine  and 
uncreated  word,  the  Second  Person  of  the  Holy  Trinity  ;  but 
when  it  was  a  question  of  finding  a  victim — of  finding  a  nature 
in  which  this  word  should  operate,  in  finding  the  nature  in  which 
this  word  was  to  be  grieved,  and  to  be  bruised,  and  to  bleed, 
and  to  weep,  and  to  pray  for  man — God  was  obliged  to  look 
down  from  heaven  and  find  that  nature  upon  the  earth.  There- 
fore, my  dearly  beloved  brethren,  heaven  and  earth  united  in 
producing  Jesus  Christ,  and  it  is  as  necessary  for  us  to  believe 
in  the  reality  of  the  divinity  that,  coming  down  from  heaven, 
dwelt  in  Him,  as  it  is  for  us  to  believe  in  the  reality  of  the  hu- 
manity which  was  assumed  and  absorbed  by  Him  into  His 
divine  person.  A  man  may  exalt  the  divinity  at  the  expense 
of  the  humanity,  and  he  may  say :  "  He  was  divine,  this  man, 
Jesus  Christ,  but,  remember,  He  was  not  a  true  man  ;  He  only 
took  a  human  body  for  a  certain  purpose,  and  then,  casting  it 
from  Him,  went  up  into  the  high  heaven  of  God."  The  man 
who  says  this  is  not  a  Christian,  because  he  does  not  believe  in 
the  reality  of  the  human  nature  of  Jesus  Christ.     Heretics  have 


436  Good  Works  with  Faith 

said  this,  and  the  Church  cut  them  off  with  an  anathema.  Of 
we  may  exalt  His  humanity  at  the  expense  of  His  divinity,  and 
say,  "  He  was  a  true  man,  but  He  was  not  united  to  God  by 
personal  union  ;  He  was  not  a  divine  person,  but  a  human  per- 
son ;  He  was  a  true  man,  this  man  who  was  crucified  for  our 
sins — true,  and  holy,  and  perfect — but  not  God."  Heretics 
have  said  this,  and  say  it  to-day.  Even  Mahomet  acknowledged 
that  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  the  most  perfect  of  men,  but  He 
was  not  God.  The  man  who  says  this  is  not  a  Christian,  because 
he  does  not  believe  in  the  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ.  Now,  I 
think,  that  from  what  I  have  said,  you  must  at  once  conclude 
that  in  the  plan  of  man's  redemption,  the  divinity  was  as  neces- 
sary as  the  humanity;  that  the  humanity  was  as  necessary  as  the 
divinity  ;  that  the  world  could  never  be  redeemed  without  the 
divinity ;  that  man  alone  could  not  do  it ;  that  the  world  could 
never  be  redeemed  without  the  humanity,  for  God  alone  could 
never  suffer.  What  follows  from  all  this  ?  It  follows,  my  dearly 
beloved,  in  logic  and  in  truth,  that  for  the  world's  redemption, 
Mary  on  earth  was  as  necessary  as  the  Eternal  Father  in 
heaven  ;  that  in  the  decrees  and  councils  of  God — in  the  plan  of 
God — the  Mother  of  His  humanity  was  as  necessary  as  the 
Father  of  His  divinity,  and  that  she  rises  at  once  in  the  designs 
of  God  to  the  magnificent  part  that  was  assigned  her  in  the  plan 
of  redemption,  namely,  that  the  world  could  not  be  redeemed 
without  her,  because  she  gave  the  human  nature  of  Jesus  Christ, 
without  which  there  was  no  redemption  for  man. 

Who  died  upon  the  cross?  The  Son  of  God.  Whose  hands 
were  these  that  were  nailed  to  that  hard  wood  ?  The  hands  of 
the  Son  of  God.  What  person  is  this  that  I  behold  all  covered 
with  wounds,  and  bleeding,  and  crowned  with  thorns?  Who  is 
this  sorrow-stricken  person  ?  That  is  the  Second  Person  of  the 
adorable  Trinity  !  The  same  God,  begotten  in  H'"m  consub- 
stantial  to  the  Father,  who  was  from  the  beginning,  and  by 
whom  all  things  were  made.  And  if*  this  be  the  Son  of  God, 
what  right  has  that  woman  to  look  up  to  Him  with  a  mother's 
eyes?  What  right  have  these  dying  lips  to  address  her  as 
mother?  Ah  !  because,  my  dearly  beloved,  He  was  as  truly  the 
Son  of  Mary  as  He  was  the  Son  of  God. 

And  now,  as  I  wish  to  take  my  own  time,  and  to  enter  fully 
into  all  these  things  in  successive  meditations,  let  me  conclude 


Necessary  to  St Ivat ton.  437 

with  only  one  remark.  Since  I  came  to  the  use  of  reason,  and 
learned  my  catechism,  and  mastered  the  idea  that  was  taught 
me  of  how  God  in  heaven  planned  and  designed  the  redemption 
of  mankind,  the  greatest  puzzle  in  my  life  has  been — a  thing 
that  I  never  could  understand — has  been,  how  any  one,  believ- 
ing what  I  have  said,  could  refuse  their  veneration,  their  honor, 
and  their  love  to  the  Blessed  Virgin,  Mother  of  Jesus  Christ  ; 
for  it  seems  to  me  that  nothing  is  more  natural  to  the  heart  of 
man  than  to  be  grateful,  and  that,  in  proportion  to  the  gift 
which  is  received  from  any  one,  in  the  same  proportion  do  we 
find  our  hearts  springing  with  gratitude  within  us,  and  a  strange 
craving  and  a  strange,  dissatisfied  feeling  to  find  out  how  we 
can  express  that  gratitude  that  we  feel.  And  is  this  a  sacred 
feeling?  Most  sacred;  natural,  but  most  sacred.  We  find  in 
the  Scriptures  the  loud  tone  of  praise,  honor,  and  veneration, 
and  the  gratitude  that  the  inspired  writers  poured  forth  towards 
those  who  were  great  benefactors  of  mankind,  and  especially  to 
the  women  of  the  Old  Testament.  How  loud,  for  instance,  are 
the  praises  that  the  Scriptures  give  to  the  daughter  of  Jephtha, 
because  she  sacrificed  herself  according  to  her  father's  vow  for 
the  people.  How  loud  the  praises  which  celebrated  the  glorious 
woman,  Deborah,  who  in  the  day  of  distress  and  danger  headed 
the  army  of  Israel,  drew  the  sword,  and  the  Scriptures  say  that 
all  the  people  praised  her  forevermore,  and  they  sang,  "  Blessed 
be  God,  because  a  mother  has  arisen  in  Israel."  How  loud  the 
praises  of  Esther,  of  whom  the  Scripture  tells  us  that  the  Jews 
celebrated  an  annual  festival  in  her  honor  because  she  interceded 
Jvith  the  King  Ahasuerus  and  saved  the  people  from  destruction. 
How  loud  the  praises  of  Judith,  who,  coming  forth  from  the 
city  upon  the  rocky  summit  of  the  mountain,  with  her  womanly 
hand  slew  the  enemy  of  Israel  and  of  Israel's  God,  Holofernes, 
and,  returning  in  triumph,  the  ancients  of  the  city  came  forth 
anr1  cried  out,  "  Blessed  be  the  Lord  God  of  Israel,  and  thou  ; 
thou  art  the  glory  of  Israel  ;  thou  art  the  glory  of  Jerusalem 
thou  art  the  joy  of  Israel ;  thou  art  the  honor  of  our  people.' 
And  yet,  what  did  Deborah,  or  Esther,  or  Judith — what  did  any 
of  these  or  any  other  man  or  woman  on  the  face  of  the  earth  do 
for  us  compared  with  what  Mary  did  ?  Judith  cut  off  the  head 
of  Holofernes,  Mary  set  her  heel  on  the  head  of  the  serpent 
that  was  the  destruction  of  our  race  ;  Esther  pleaded  for  the 


43 8  Good  Works  with  Faith 

people  before  the  Assyrian  monarch  and  saved  them  from  tern 
poral  ruin  ;  Mary  pleaded,  and  pleads  to  the  King  of  Kings,  to 
the  King  of  Heaven,  and  saves  the  people  from  destruction ; 
Jephtha's  daughter  gave  her  life  ;  Mary  brought  down  the  life, 
indeed,  from  heaven,  and  gave  it  to  us.  And  yet,  strange  to  say, 
those  who  are  constantly  talking  about  "  the  Bible,  the  Bible, 
the  Bible,  the  open  Bible,  the  Bible  free  to  every  man,"  those 
who  call  themselves  Bible  men,  those  in  whose  oily  mouths  this 
Bible  is  always,  every  text  of  it,  coming  forth  as  if  you  taught 
a  parrot  in  its  cage  to  recite  it,  understanding  it  as  much  as  the 
bird  would — these  are  the  very  people  who  tell  us  that  we  may 
join  with  the  Jews  of  old  in  the  praises  of  Esther  and  praises 
of  Deborah,  that  we  may  cry  out  in  tones  of  admiration  for 
Mary,  the  sister  of  Moses,  for  Rachel,  but  that  we  must  not  say 
a  word  to  express  our  gratitude,  our  love,  our  veneration  and 
our  honor  for  the  woman,  the  woman  amongst  women,  the 
spiritual  mother  of  all  our  race,  because  her  child  was  our  first- 
born brother,  the  woman  that  gave  us  Jesus  Christ,  the  woman  that 
gave  to  him  the  blood  that  flowed  from  his  veins  upon  Calvary 
and  saved  the  world — for  this  woman  no  word,  save  a  word  of 
reproach,  an  echo  of  the  hisses  of  hell,  an  echo  of  the  sibilation 
of  the  infernal  serpent  that  was  crushed  by  God.  Christ  hon 
ored  her ;  we  must  not  unite  with  him  in  her  honor.  Christ 
obeyed  her;  we  must  not  unite  with  him  in  obeying  her.  Christ 
loved  her ;  we  must  not  let  one  emotion  of  love  into  our  heart. 
Who  are  the  men  that  say  this?  I  have  heard  words  from 
their  lips  which  they  would  not  permit  any  man  to  say  of  their 
own  mothers,  and  they  had  the  infernal  hardihood  to  say  these 
words  of  the  mother  of  Jesus  Christ,  of  the  Son  of  God  ;  and, 
my  friends,  I  believe  we  can  in  nowise  better  employ  this  month 
of  May  and  its  devotions  than  in  making  reparation  to  our  Lord 
and  Saviour  and  to  his  holy  Mother  for  the  insults  that  fall  upon 
him  when  they  are  put  upon  her.  The  deepest  insult  that  you 
could  offer  to  any  man  would  be  to  insult  his  mother,  and  the 
more  perfect  the  child  is  and  the  more  loving,  the  more  keenly 
will  he  feel  that  insult.  He,  with  his  dying  lips,  provided  for  Mary 
his  mother  a  son,  a  second  son,  the  purest  and  the  most  loving 
amongst  men.  It  shows  how  he  thought  of  her  at  his  last  mo- 
ments ;  how  she  was  the  dearest  object  that  he  left  upon  this 
earth  ;  and  that  which  is  dear  to  the  heart  of  Jesus  Christ  should 


Necessary  to  Salvation. 


439 


always  be  dear  to  your  hearts  and  minds.  Next  to  the  love, 
eternal,  infinite,  essential,  that  bound  him  in  his  divinity  to  his 
eternal  Father,  next  to  that  in  strength,  in  intensity,  in  tender- 
ness, was  the  love  that  bound  him  to  the  Mother  who  came  in 
closest  relation  with  him.  And,  oh  !  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  teach 
us  to  love  what  thou  lovest,  and  so  revere  and  honor  that 
which  thou  didst  condescend  to  honor. 


THE   PEACE  OF   GOD. 


[Delivered  in  the  chapel  of  the  "  Xavier  Alumni  Sodality,"  on  Sunday,  May  7ti, 
1872.] 

"  Now,  when  it  was  late  that  same  day,  being  the  first  day  of  the  week,  and  the 
doors  were  shut,  where  the  disciples  were  gathered  together,  for  fear  of  the  Jews. 
Jesus  came,  and  stood  in  the  midst,  and  said  to  them  :  '  Peace  be  to  you.'  *  *  *  * 
The  disciples,  therefore,  were  glad  when  they  saw  the  Lord,  and  He  said  to  them 
again  :  '  Peace  be  to  you.'  Now,  Thomas,  the  son  of  Didymus,  was  not  with  them. 
*  *  *  *  Jesus  came  and  stood  in  the  midst  of  them,  and  said  :  '  Peace  be  to  you.'  " 
— John  xx.  19  to  31. 

HIS  mode  of  salutation  was  adopted  by  our  divine 
Lord  after  His  resurrection,  and  not  before.  Invari- 
ably, for  the  forty  days  that  He  remained  with  His 
own,  after  He  had  risen  unto  His  glory,  He  saluted 
them  with  the  words,  "  Peace  be  to  you,"  as  He  had  said  else- 
where, "  My  peace  I  leave  unto  you ;  My  peace  I  give  unto 
you."  After  His  resurrection,  I  say,  He  said  these  words.  Be- 
fore His  passion  He  could  scarcely  say  them  with  truth ;  for  up 
to  the  moment  that  He  sent  forth  His  last  cry  upon  the  cross — 
saving  us — there  was  war  between  God  and  man  ;  and  how  could 
the  Son  of  God  say,  "  Peace  be  to  you  ?"  But  now,  when  He  has 
reconciled  all  to  Himself—  omnia  reconcilavit  et  in  semet  ipso  paean 
faciens — creating  peace — that  which  He  Himself  produced,  He 
gave  to  His  Apostles  in  the  words  which  I  have  just  read  for 
you. 

And  now,  my  dear  friends,  let  us  consider  what  is  that  peace 
of  which  our  Saviour  speaks — what  is  that  peace  which  He  de- 
clares to  be  the  inheritance  of  the  elect — the  great  legacy  that 
He  left  to  the  world — "  the  peace  of  God  that  surpasseth  all 
understanding."     In  what  does  it  consist  ?     Do  we  know  the 


The  Peace  of  God.  441 

meaning — the  very  definition  of  it  ?  It  is  a  simple  word,  and 
familiar  to  us,  is  this  word  peace ;  but  I  venture  to  say  that  it  13 
one  of  those  simple  words  that  men  do  not  take  the  trouble 
to  seek  to  interpret  or  to  understand.  In  order,  then,  that  we 
may  understand  what  is  this  "  peace  of  God  which  surpasseth 
all  understanding,"  and  in  order  that,  in  our  understanding  of 
it,  by  the  light  of  faith,  we  may  discover  our  own  mission  as 
Christian  men,  I  ask  you  to  consider  what  the  mission  of  the 
divine  Son  of  God  was,  when  He  came  and  was  incarnate  by 
the  Holy  Ghost,  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  was  made  man.  What 
did  He  come  for  ?  What  work  did  He  have  to  do  ?  I  answer 
in  the  language  of  Scripture:  "  He  came  to  effect  many  works 
of  peace  and  reconciliation."  In  the  day  that  man  sinned  and 
rebelled  against  God,  he  declared  war  against  the  Almighty ; 
and  God  took  up  the  challenge,  and  declared  war  against  sinners. 
This  war  involved  separation  between  God  and  man  ;  and  in 
this  state  of  warfare  did  Christ  our  Lord  find  the  world.  He 
found  the  world  separated  from  God,  first  of  all,  by  error  and 
ignorance.  "There  is  no  truth  and  there  is  no  knowledge  of 
God  in  the  land,"  was  the  complaint  of  the  Prophet  Isaiah. 
"  Truth  is  diminished  amongst  the  children  of  men,"  exclaimed, 
with  sorrow,  the  royal  Psalmist.  "  Nowhere  is  God  known." 

Before  the  Son  of  God  came  upon  the  earth,  the  nations  had 
wandered  away  into  a  thousand  forms  of  idolatry  and  of  error. 
Every  man  called  his  own  form  of  error  by  the  name  of  "  re- 
ligion." Seme  were  "Epicureans;"  sensualists — beasts  were 
made  gods  by  tdiem.  They  canonized  the  principle  of  impurity, 
and  they  called  it  by  the  name  of  a  goddess  ;  and  they  declared 
that  this  was  their  religion  !  Others  there  were,  brutalized  in 
mind,  who  worshipped  their  own  passions  of  strife  ;  and  they 
canonized  the  principle  of  revenge,  and  of  bloodshed,  and  they 
worshipped  it  under  the  name  of  Mars.  This  thing  went  so 
far  that  even  thieves,  robbers,  the  dishonest,  had  their  own  god  ; 
and  the  principle  of  dishonesty  and  of  thievery  was  canonized, 
or,  rather,  deified,  and  called  religion,  and  embodied  under  the 
name  of  the  god  Mercury !  It  is  a  trick  of  the  devil,  and  it  is  a 
trick  of  the  world,  to  take  up  some  form  of  error,  some  form 
of  unbelief,  and  to  call  that  "religion."  When  He  came  that 
was  "  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life,"  there  was  darkness  over 
the  whole   earth.     The  world  was   "  civilized"  enough.     Arts 


442  The  Peace  of  God. 

and  sciences  flourished.  It  was  the  "Augustan  Era,'  which 
has  given  a  name  to  the  very  highest  civilization  amongst  the 
nations,  from  that  day  to  this.  But  what  was  the  awful  want 
of  their  civilization  ?  They  ignored  God  ;  they  took  no  account 
of  God  in  their  knowledge ;  they  thought  they  could  be  wise 
without  God.  God  nullified  their  wisdom,  and  abandoned  them 
to  a  reprobate  sense !  Thus  did  mankind  declare  war  against 
the  God  of  truth  and  of  wisdom.  What  followed  from  this  ? 
Another  kind  of  war,  more  terrible,  if  you  will,  the  effect — the 
natural  and  necessary  effect — of  that  separation  of  the  human 
intellect  from  God.  What  was  this  ?  Every  form  of  sin — nay, 
the  vilest,  the  filthiest,  the  most  abominable  sin — was  found 
amongst  men.  Not  as  an  exception  ;  not  as  a  thing  to  be  hid- 
den, but  as  a  thing  to  be  acknowledged,  as  a  matter  of  course. 
The  husband  was  not  faithful  to  the  wife,  nor  the  wife  to  the 
husband.  Juvenal  tells  us,  that  in  that  flourishing  society  of 
Paganism,  as  a  man  saw  his  wife  growing  old,  and,  accordingly 
as  the  bloom  of  her  youth  passed  away  from  her,  he  began  to 
despise  her,  until,  in  the  words  of  the  satirist,  the  day  came" 
when  she  saw  a  fair,  blooming  maiden  come  into  the  house,  and 
herself,  the  mother  of  children,  summoned  to  go  out ;  because 
her  eyes  had  lost  their  lustre,  and  her  features  the  roses  and  the 
lilies  of  beauty ;  and  a  stranger  was  there  to  take  her  place. 
There  was  no  principle  of  fidelity.  There  was  no  principle  of 
honesty.  No  man  could  trust  his  fellow-man.  No  man  knew 
who  was  to  be  trusted.  Even  the  ancient,  rugged  virtues,  that 
the  early  republics  of  Greece  and  Rome  produced,  had  passed 
away.  The  world  was  over-civilized  for  them.  They  were  the 
rough  forms,  with  some  semblance  of  that  virtue  upon  them 
that  the  rugged,  half-civilized  man  possessed,  and  were  utterly 
laughed  at,  and  scorned,  and  scoffed  at  by  the  civilized  Pagan, 
who  was  the  very  embodiment  of  sensuality  and  impurity! 

Thus  did  the  world  declare  war  against  God,  and  for  sensual- 
ity. The  God  of  purity — they  knew  Him  not — and,  therefore, 
they  could  not  believe  in  Him.  "  There  is  no  truth,  and  there 
is  no  knowledge  of  God  in  the  land,"  says  the  prophet.  Then, 
he  immediately  adds  :  "  Cursing,  lying,  theft,  and  adultery  have 
overthrown  and  blotted  out  much  love — because  my  people, 
saith  the  Lord,  have  no  grace." 

The  second  kind  of  war  which  our  Lord  found  upon  the  earth, 


The  Peace  of  God.  443 

was  the  war  between  men  ;  for  they  who  had  ceased  to  know 
God,  had  ceased  to  love  or  respect  one  another.  Split  up  into 
a  multitude  of  sects,  nation  against  nation,  province  against 
province,  the  very  history  of  our  race  was  nothing  but  a  history 
of  war,  and  strife,  and  bloodshed.  Then  came  the  Son  of  God 
incarnate,  with  healing  hand  and  powerful  touch,  to  restore  the 
world,  and  to  renew  the  face  of  our  earth.  How  did  He  do 
this?  It  could  only  be  done  by  Him  ;  and  by  Him  could  it  be 
only  done  by  His  instituting,  and  leaving,  and  declaring  the 
truth  of  God — Himself — and  leaving  it  in  the  midst  of  men  ; 
the  unchangeable  truth,  the  eternal  truth,  the  pure,  unmixed, 
bright  light  of  truth,  as  it  beamed  forth  from  the  eternal  wisdom 
of  God.  It  was  only  thus  that  He  could  restore  mankind  to 
peace  with  the  God  of  eternal  truth.  Then  it  was  necessary, 
that  having  thus  established  the  truth,  He  should  wipe  out  the 
sin,  by  the  shedding  of  His  own  blood,  as  a  victim,  and  that  He 
should  leave  behind  Him,  for  ever,  in  the  world,  the  running 
stream  of  that  sanctifying  blood  unto  the  cleansing  of  the  sinner 
and  the  unclean,  unto  the  strengthening  of  the  weak,  unto  the 
encouraging  of  the  strong,  unto  the  revivifying  of  the  dead. 
Did  Christ  do  this?  Yes.  He  lifted  up  His  voice  and  spoke, 
and  the  voice  of  the  Saviour  was  the  voice  of  the  Eternal  God. 
And  mark,  that,  before  He  saved  the  world  by  the  shedding  of 
His  blood,  before  He  redeemed  the  sin,  for  three  long  years, 
night  and  day,  in  season  and  out  of  season,  He  was  preaching 
and  teaching ;  dispelling  error,  letting  in  the  light ;  for  mankind 
would  not  be  prepared  for  redemption  except  through  the  light 
and  through  the  truth  of  God.  Wherefore  we  find  Him  now  on 
the  mountain-side,  now  on  the  lake ;  now  among  the  Pharisees, 
now  in  the  desert ;  now  in  the  temple  of  Jerusalem,  now  in  the 
by-ways  of  Judea;  now  in  the  little  towns  and  villages — but 
everywhere — "quotidie  docens"  teaching  every  day ;  for  three  years 
preparing  the  world  for  its  redemption  ;  reconciling  the  human 
intelligence  with  the  light  of  God's  truth  ;  opening  up  the  minds, 
and  letting  the  stream  of  the  pure  light  from  God  into  the 
intellect.  Then,  when  the  three  years'  preparation  were  over: 
then,  when  men  began  to  understand  what  the  truth  was  ;  then, 
when  He  had  formed  His  disciples,  and  established  His  apos- 
tolic college  ;  then  did  the  Eternal  Victim  go  upon  the  cross, 
and  pour  out  His  blood  ;  and  the  shedding  of  that  blood  washed 


444  The  Peace  oj  God. 

away  the  sin  of  the  world,  and  left  open  those  streams  from  His 
sacred  wounds  that  were  to  flow  through  the  sacramental  chan- 
nels, and  that  were  to  find  every  human  soul,  with  all  its 
spiritual  wants — here,  there,  and  everywhere — until  the  end  of 
time ;  according  to  that  promise  relating  to  the  Church  of  the 
Lord,  "You  shall  draw  waters  of  joy  from  the  fountains  of  sor- 
row !"  He  purified  the  world  by  the  shedding  of  His  blood. 
But  well  did  He  know  our  nature.  "  Et  naturam  nostram  ipse 
cognovit."  He  made  us,  and  He  knew  us.  Well  did  He  know 
that  the  stream  that  He  poured  forth  from  His  wounds  on  Cal- 
vary should  flow  for  ever,  because  the  sins  which  that  blood 
alone  could  wipe  away,  would  be  renewed,  and  renewed  again, 
as  long  as  mankind  should  be  upon  this  earth.  "For,"  and 
He  said  it  with  sorrowing  voice, "  it  needs  must  be  that  scandal 
cometh." 

Thus  in  the  Divine  truth  and  the  sacramental  grace  which  He 
gave,  did  He  reconcile  mankind  to  His  Heavenly  Father,  and 
restore  peace  between  God  and  man.  Then,  touching  the 
other  great  warfare,  He  proclaimed  the  principle  of  universal 
charity — declared  that  no  injuries,  no  insult,  must  obstruct  it, 
or  break  it,  or  destroy  it — declared  that  we  must  do  good  foi 
evil — declared  that  we  must  live  for  man,  take  an  interest  in 
all  men,  try  to  gain  the  souls  of  all  men  ;  and  that  this  love, 
this  fraternity,  this  charity,  must  reign  in  our  hearts  at  the  very 
same  time  that  we  are  upholding,  with  every  power  of  our 
mind — and,  if  necessary,  of  our  body,  the  sacred  principles  of 
Divine  truth,  and  of  Divine  grace. 

Behold,  then,  my  dear  friends,  the  peace  that  passeth  all  un- 
derstanding; the  peace  that  He  came  to  leave  and  to  give.  Peace 
means  union.  When  nations  are  at  war,  they  are  separated 
from  each  other  into  two  hostile  camps,  and  they  look  upon 
each  other  with  scowling  eyes  of  hatred  and  anger  ;  and  when 
the  war  is  over,  they  come  forth — they  meet — and  they  join 
hands  in  peace.  So,  the  meeting  of  the  intellect  of  man  with 
the  truth  of  God — the  admission  of  that  Divine  truth  into  the 
mind — the  opening  of  the  heart  to  the  admission  of  the  grace 
of  God,  and  of  our  Lord  Himself,  by  the  sacraments,  establishes 
the  meeting  of  peace  between  God  and  man.  The  charity  of 
which  I  have  spoken — the  nobleness  of  Christian  forgiveness, 
which  is  the  complement  of  Christian  humility — the  grandeur  of 


The  Peace  of  God.  445 

Christian  patience  and  forbearance — establishes  peace  amongst 
all  mankind.  It  was  the  design  of  Christ  that  that  eternal 
peace  of  which  I  speak  should  also  be  represented  by  unity — 
that  all  men  should  be  one  by  the  unity  of  thought  in  one  com- 
mon faith,  by  the  unity  of  heart  in  one  common  charity.  And 
it    is   worthy    of    remark    that    just  as   our  Lord  saluted  His 

1  Apostles  with  the  words:  "  My  peace  be  with  you" — after  His 
resurrection — so,  before  His  passion — on  the  night  before  He 
suffered — He  put  up  his  prayer  to  God — and,  over  and  over 
again  to  the  Father  in  Heaven — that  all  men  might  be  one, 
even  as  He  and  the  Father  were  one.  "  Father,"  He  says, 
'■'  keep  them  one,  even  as  Thou  and  I  are  one."  That  is  to 
r,ay:  a  union  of  faith — a  recognition  of  one  undivided  and  un- 
changing truth — a  bowing  down  of  all  before  one  idea — and 
then  a  union  of  hearts  springing  from  that  union  of  faith.  This 
was  the  design  of  Christ,  and  for  this  He  labored.  And  this 
the  Church  has  labored  to  effect.  For  this  she  has  labored  two 
thousand  years.  She  has  succeeded,  in  a  great  measure,  in 
doing  it — but  the  work  has  been  upset  and  destroyed  in  many 
lands  by  the  hands  of  those  who  were  the  enemies  of  God,  in 
spoiling  and  breaking  up  the  fair  design  of  our  Lord  and 
Saviour. 

Now,  in  this  eternal  and  immutable  truth,  preached  to  all 
men — recognized  by  all  men — gathering  in  every  intelligence — 
respecting  all  honest  deviations — yet  uniting  all  in  faith — in  this 
truth  and  in  this  sanctifying  peace  which  is  in  the  Catholic 
Church,  lies  the  salvation  of  the  world — the  salvation  of  so- 
ciety— the  salvation  of  every  principle  which  forms  this  highly- 
commended  and  often-praised  civilization  of  ours.  The  mo- 
ment we  step  one  inch  out  of  the  Catholic  Church  and  look 
around  us,  what  do  we  find?  Is  there  any  agency  on  earth — 
even  though  it  may  call  itself  a  religion — that  will  answer  the 

"  purposes  of  society?  Is  there  any  of  these  sects,  or  religions 
(as  they  call  themselves)  that  can  make  a  man  pure  ?  No.  They 
are  unable  to  probe  and  sound  the  depths  of  the  human  heart. 
They  do  not  pretend  to  legislate  for  purity  of  thought.  Prac- 
tically, they  reduce  the  idea  of  purity  to  a  mere  saving  of 
appearances  before  the  world — to  a  mere  external  respect  and 
decorum.  Are  they  able  to  shake  a  man  out  of  his  sins  ?  No ; 
there  is  no  reality  about  them.     They  have  no  tribunal  of  cort 


446  The  Peace  of  God. 

science,  even,  to  which  they  oblige  a  man  to  come,  after  care- 
ful self-examination.  They  have  no  standard  of  j  idgment  to 
put  before  him.  They  have  no  agency,  divinely  appointed, 
to  crush  a  man — to  humble  a  man — to  break  the  pride  in  him — 
to  make  him  confess  and  avow  his  sin — and  then,  lifting  the 
sacramental  hand  over  him,  by  reason  of  his  humility,  his 
sorrow,  and  his  confession — to  send  him  forth  renewed  and  con- 
verted by  the  grace  of  God.  There  is  no  such  thing.  There  is 
nothing  so  calculated  to  enable  a  man  to  keep  his  word  faith- 
fully. No.  The  first  principle  of  fidelity — lying  at  the  root  of 
all  society — the  great  fundamental  principle  of  fidelity — is  the 
sacrament  which  makes  the  sanctity  of  marriage — by  which 
those  whom  it  unites  are  sealed  with  the  seal  of  God  and 
sanctified  with  the  truth  of  God's  Church.  The  man  is  saved 
from  the  treachery  of  his  own  passions.  The  woman  is  saved 
from  the  inconstancy  of  the  heart  of  man.  The  family  is 
saved  in  the  assertion  of  the  mother's  rights — in  the  placing  on 
her  head  a  crown  that  no  hand  on  earth  can  touch  or  take  away. 
The  future  of  the  world  is  saved  by  ennobling  the  Christian 
woman  and  wife  and  mother,  with  something  of  the  purity  of 
the  Virgin  Mother  of  God  !  Do  they  do  this  ?  Oh,  I  feel  the 
heart  within  me  indignant — the  blood  almost  boiling  in  my 
veins  when  I  think  of  it — when  I  see  under  the  shadow  of  the 
Crucified,  nineteen  hundred  years  after  He  had  sanctified  the 
world — when  I  see  men  deliberately  rooting,  up  the  very  founda- 
tions of  society — loosening  the  key-stone  in  the  arch,  and  pull- 
ing it  down,  in  the  day  when  they  went  back  to  their  Pagan- 
ism— in  the  day  when  they  threatened  that  the  bond  that 
God  had  tied  should  be  unloosed  by  the  hands  of  men — in 
the  day  when  they  gave  the  lie  to  the  Lord  Himself,  who  de- 
clared— "  What  God  hath  joined  let  no  man  separate," — in  the 
day  when  man  is  so  flung  out  into  his  own  temptations  ;  and  the 
woman,  no  matter  who  she  may  be — crowned  queen  or  lowly 
peasant ;  the  first  or  the  last  in  the  land — is  waiting  in  trepida- 
tion, not  knowing  the  hour  when,  upon  some  infamous  accusa- 
tion, the  writ  of  divorce  may  be  put  into  her  hind,  and  the 
mother  of  children  be  ordered  to  go  forth,  that  her  place  may 
be  given  to  another  ! 

Is  there  any  agency  to  make  men  honest?     No  ;  they  cannot 
do  it.     A  man  plunders  to-day ;  steals  with  privy  hand ;  ea- 


The  Peace  of  Goa.  447 

riches  himself  unlawfully,  unjustly,  shamefully — and  to-morrow 
he  goes  to  some  revival,  or  some  camp-meeting,  and  there  he 
blesses  the  Lord  in  a  loud  voice,  proclaiming  to  his  admiiing 
friends  that  "  he  has  found  the  Lord  !"  But  is  there  any 
agency  to  stop  him,  and  say :  "  Hold,  my  friend  wait  for  a  mo- 
ment !  Have  you  made  restitution  to  the  last  farthing  fcr  what 
you  unjustly  acquired  ?  Have  you  shaken  out  that  Judas  purse 
of  yours,  until  the  last  dime — the  very  last  piece  of  silver  for 
which  you  sold  your  soul  to  hell,  has  gone  back  again  to  those 
from  whom  it  was  taken  ?  If  not,  speak  not  of  finding  Christ ! 
Speak  not  of  leaning  upon  the  Lord  !  Blaspheme  not  the 
God  of  Justice!"  Is  there  any  agency  outside  of  the  Catholic 
Church  to  sift  a  man  like  this  ?  Is  there  any  such  agency  at  all  ? 
No  ;  we  live  in  an  age  of  shams — of  pretences ;  and  the  worst 
shams  of  all — the  vilest — the  foulest  pretences  of  all — are  those 
we  find  in  the  so-called  "  religious  world."  Take  up  your  re- 
ligious newspapers — take  up  your  religious  publications  outside 
of  the  Catholic  Church  !  I  protest  it  is  more  than  common 
sense  or  human  patience  can  bear  !  If  the  great  Church  of  the 
living  God  were  not  in  the  midst  of  you,  unchanging  in  truth — 
ever  faithful  in  every  commission — clothed  in  the  freshness  of 
her  first  sanctity,  and  sanctifying  all  who  come  within  her  sacra- 
mental influence — if  she  were  not  here  as  the  city  of  God,  this 
so-called  "  religious  world  "  would  bring  down  the  wrath  of 
God, — calculated,  as  its  antics  are,  to  bring  the  Lord,  Himself, 
into  contempt,  exciting  the  pity  of  angels,  the  anger  of  heaven, 
and  the  joy  of  hell. 

A  recent  writer  who  has  devoted  some  attention  to  the  con- 
sideration of  the  question  of  religious  indifference  asks — "  Why 
are  the  churches  empty  ?  How  is  it  that  the  intellectual  men 
of  the  day  don't  like  to  listen  to  sermons  ?  How  is  it  that  they 
take  no  interest  in  the  things  of  the  Church  ?  How  is  it  that 
they  have  no  belief?"  And  a  wise  voice — a  pious  voice — ■ 
answers  :  "  Because,  my  friend,  you  do  not  know  how  to  preach 
to  them.  If  you  want  to  captivate  the  intellect  of  the  men  of 
our  day^— if  you  want  to  warp  them — if  you  want  to  con- 
vince them — don't  be  clinging  to  antiquated  traditions  ; — don't 
rest  upon  these  so-called  doctrines  of  a  by-gone  time.  Read 
scientific  books.  Find  there  the  problems  that  are  bursting  up 
continually  from  modern  science,   and    try  to    reconcile   your 


443  The  Peace  of  God. 

ideas  of  religion  with  those ; — and  then  preach  to  them  \ 
Then  will  you  show  yourself  a  man  of  the  age — a  man 
of  progress  !"  And  so,  henceforth,  the  subject  matter  of  our 
sermons  is  to  be  electric  telegraphs,  submarine  cables,  and  flying 
ships.  "  If  you  want  to  learn  how  most  effectively  to  preach," 
adds  this  wise  and  able  voice,  "  read  the  latest  novels,  and  try 
to  learn  from  them  all  the  by-ways  and  highways  of  the  human 
heart."  See  how  delicately  they  follow  all  the  chit-chat  of 
society,  all  the  little  gossipings  and  love-makings,  and  the  thou- 
sand-and-one  influences  that  act  upon  the  adulterous  and  de- 
praved heart  of  man — the  wicked  passions  of  man.  This  is  the 
text  from  which  the  preacher  of  to-day  is  to  preach  if  he  wishes 
to  attract  the  intellect  of  the  world.  And  all  this  in  the  very 
sight,  and  under  the  shadow  of  the  Cross  of  Christ,  who  died 
for  man  !  Was  ever  blasphemy  so  terrible  ?  And  this  is  what 
is  called  "  religion,"  by  the  world.  Not  a  word  about  Divine 
truth — not  a  word  about  Divine  grace !  In  one  of  the  leading 
journals  of  New  York — an  able  paper, — a  well  written  paper — in 
a  leading  article  of  that  paper — this  very  morning,  I  read  a  long 
dissertation  on  this  very  question  of  preaching  and  preachers ; 
— and  the  word  "  truth  "  appeared  only  once  in  that  article, — 
and  then  it  came  in  under  the  title  of  "scientific  truth."  The 
word  "grace  "  did  not  occur  even  once.  But  never,  even  once, 
did  simple  "  truth  "  occur — or  even  "  religious  truth,"  flash 
across  the  mind  of  the  able,  temperate-minded,  judicious  man 
that  wrote  it !  And  I  don't  blame  him,  for  he  was  writing  for 
the  age  !  He  was  giving  a  very  fair  idea  of  what  the  world  is, 
and  what  the  world  is  sure  to  come  to,  if  the  Almighty  God,  in 
His  mercy,  does  not  touch  the  hearts  of  men,  and  give  them 
enough  of  sense  to  turn  to  the  Catholic  Church  and  hear  the 
voice  of  God — the  Divine  spouse  of  Christ — in  her  teachings. 
Without  this  voice  they  cannot  hear  the  voice  of  God.  With- 
out  her  teaching,  this  hardened,  dried-up  heart  of  man  will 
never  grow  into  purity  or  love. 

Now  we  come  to  the  mission  that  you  and  I  have.  Grand 
as  is  the  vision  that  rises  before  our  eyes  when  we  contemplate 
the  heavenly  beauty  and  graces  of  our  great  and  mighty  mother, 
the  Church,  who  has  never  told  a  lie,  nor  ever  compromised  or 
kept  back  the  least  portion  of  the  eternal  and  saving  truth  which 
mankind  should  know  ;  and  who  has  never  tolerated  the  slightest 


The  Peace  oj  God.  449 

sin,  but  to  king  and  peasant  has  said  alike,  "Be  pure,  be  faithful, 
or  I  will  cut  you  off  as  a  rotten  branch  and  cast  you  into  hell," — 
grand,  I  say,  as  is  the  spectacle  of  this  glorious  Church — wonder- 
ful and  convincing  as  are  her  claims  to  every  man's  faith  and  every 
man's  obedience — if  the  advocacy  of  their  claims  were  left  to  me, 
and  to  such  as  I  am,  and  to  the  fathers,  the  world  would  scarcely 
ever  be  converted.  You  have  your  mission,  my  dear  young 
friends,  children  of  the  Church  of  God ;  you  have  your  mission 
— not  as  preachers,  indeed ;  yet,  far  more  eloquent  than  the 
voice  of  any  preacher,  in  the  silent  force  of  example — the  exam- 
ple that  you  must  give  to  those  around  you,  forcing  the  most 
unwilling  and  reluctant  to  look  upon  you  and  to  see  in  you 
shining  forth  the  glories  of  your  divine  religion.  "  Sit  lux 
luceat  omni  mundo."  He  did  not  say  to  all,  "  Go  and  preach  ;" 
only  to  the  twelve.  But  to  all  of  them  He  said,  "  Let  your 
light  shine  before  men,  that  they  may  see  your  work,  and  that 
they  may  give  glory  to  God  who  is  in  heaven."  And  so  I  say 
to  you,  let  your  light  shine  calmly,  but  brightly  ;  that  all  men 
may  see  you,  and  thus  give  glory  to  your  mother,  the  Church, 
triumphant  in  heaven,  and  militant  for  you  on  earth.  It  is  your 
mission  to  avow  bravely,  manfully — however  temperately,  yet 
firm  as  the  adamantine  rock — every  sacred  principle  of  Catholi- 
city, and  every  iota  of  the  teaching  of  that  Church,  when  she 
teaches  a  law ;  because  her  destiny  is  to  be  the  embodiment  of 
truth  in  this  world.  "  With  the  heart  we  believe  unto  justice." 
But  that  is  not  enough  ;  with  the  mouth  we  must  make  loud 
confession  unto  salvation — loud  confession  !  Why?  Because 
the  devil  is  making  a  loud  act  of  his  faith,  filling  the  world  with 
it,  bringing  it  out  everywhere,  in  books,  in  newspapers,  in 
speeches,  in  associations,  in  schools,  in  the  public  academies,  in 
the  universities,  in  the  halls  of  medicine  and  of  law ;  in  the 
courts,  in'the  senate — it  is  the  one  cry — the  harsh  grating  cry 
by  which  the  devil  makes  his  act  of  detestable  faith  in  himself, 
and  denial  of  God — an  act  of  faith — an  act  of  diabolical  faith  that 
meets  us  at  every  turn — strikes  and  offends'every  sense  of  ours 
with  its  terrible  language.  We  cannot  take  up  a  book  that,  if 
we  do  not  find  a  satyr  peering  out  from  its  pages,  it  is  the  bald, 
stark  daub  of  some  fool,  who  flings  his  smut  or  his  infidelity 
into  the  sight  of  God.  We  cannot  turn  to  a  public  journal  that 
is  not  a  record  of  plundering,  of  villainy,  of  robbery,  and  mur- 

29 


4.50  The  Peace  of  God, 

ders,  and  thefts  and  defalcations.  Why,  what  would  a  diction- 
ary of  this  day  of  ours  look  like  ?  It  would  be  filled  with 
modern  names — page  after  page — for  these  modern  sins  of 
which  our  honest  forefathers  scarcely  knew  anything — these  sins, 
the  embodiment  of  the  practical  immorality  of  the  apostate 
monk  of  Wurtemburg.  We  must  oppose  this  terrible  exhibition 
of  evil  which  the  devil  makes  in  our  public  streets,  and  through- 
out every  organ  that  comes  before  us  ;  not  only  by  the  strong 
assertion  of  our  holy  faith,  but  by  the  silent  and  eloquent  ex- 
ample of  our  purity  of  life,  our  uprightness  and  cleanliness  of 
heart.  And,  therefore,  it  is,  that  in  truth,  never  perhaps,  before, 
was  the  word  of  the  Lord  so  well  fulfilled  in  the  children  of  the 
Catholic  Church  as  to-day,  when  he  said,  "You  are  the  salt  of 
the  earth."  And  so  they  are  the  salt  of  the  earth  throughout 
the  world.  How  much  more  in  this  great  country,  where  we 
are,  as  it  were,  in  the  spring-time,  only  breaking  up  the  ground 
and  throwing  in  the  seed,  from  which,  one  hundred  fold,  the 
fruit  will  come  when  we  are  lying  in  our  cold,  forgotten  graves. 
The  seedlings  that  we  sow  to-day,  of  Catholic  faith,  of  Catholic 
purity,  of  Catholic  truth,  will  grow  up  into  a  fruit,  and  an  abun- 
dance so  grand,  so  magnificent,  that,  perhaps,  it  is  given  to  us 
that  the  ultimate  glory  of  the  Church  of  God  shall  be  the  work 
of  our  hands,  and  of  our  lives  to-day.  It  is  a  great  thing  to  live 
in  the  spring-time  of  a  nation  ;  it  is  a  great  thing  to  find  oneself 
at  the  fountain-head  of  a  stream  of  mighty  national  existence 
that  will  swell  with  every  age,  gaining  momentum  as  it  rolls  on 
with  the  flood  of  time.  It  is  a  great  thing  to  lie  at  the  fountain- 
head  of  that  stream.     It  is  said,  with  truth — 

"  The  pebble  on  the  streamlet's  brink 
Has  changed  the  course  of  many  a  river  5 

The  dew-drop  on  the  acorn-leaf 
May  warp  the  giant  oak  forever." 

The  river  of  America's  nationality  and  existence  is  only  be- 
ginning to  flow  to-day,  and  we  should  endeavor  to  direct  it 
into  the  current  of  Catholicity.  The  young  oak  which  is  planted 
to-day,  and  which  will,  in  all  probability,  overshadow  and  over- 
spread the  whole  earth,  was  but  lately  hidden  in  the  acorn-cup. 
Ah,  let  us  remember,  that  even  a  pebble  in  the  hand  of  the 
youth,  David,  hurled  against  Goliah,  struck  down  the  giant 


The  Peace  of  God.  451 

Let  us  be  the  pebble  in  the  hand  of  God  that  shall  strike  down 
this  demon — this  proud,  presumptuous  demon  of  infidelity  that 
has  entered  intc  the  land,  and  taking  ;<  seizing  "  of  the  whole 
Continent  of  America,  says,  "  This  soil  must  be  mine."  Let  us 
be  as  the  pebble  in  the  mountain  brook,  which  turns  the  stream, 
that  will  one  day  be  a  mighty  river,  into  the  great  bed  of  Catho- 
lic truth  and  Catholic  purity  that  alone  can  save  this  land. 
Let  us  be  as  the  dew-drop  on  the  acorn-leaf — the  dew-drop  of 
Catholic  faith,  of  Catholic  intelligence,  and  Catholic  morality ; 
the  tear,  as  it  were,  flowing  from  the  pitying  eye  of  the  Saviour, 
upon  the  young,  sprouting  oak  of  human  existence,  training  it 
toward  heaven — sending  it  to  heaven  in  the  national  aspiration, 
in  the  national  action,  and  not  permitting  it  to  be  dragged  and 
warped,  in  this  way  and  that,  until  it  lies  a  stunted  and  mis- 
begotten plant,  clinging  to  the  earth,  into  which  it  will  fling  its 
leaves — its  trunk  stunted  and  withered,  conveying  no  sap  but 
the  sap  of  religious  bigotry  and  intolerance,  and  the  bitterest 
juices  of  foolish  sectarianism,  of  absurd,  blind  folly,  exciting  the 
laughter  of  all  sensible  men  upon  the  earth,  the  indignation  of 
God,  and  the  joy  of  hell.  This  is  our  mission.  Say,  will  you 
fulfill  it  ?  Say,  O  Catholic  young  men,  will  you  fulfill  it  ?  You 
cannot  fulfill  it  without  being  thorough-going  Catholics  ;  you 
cannot  fulfill  it  without  being  joined  heart  and  soul  with  the 
Church,  through  the  Church's  head — through  the  immutable 
rock — the  supreme  governor — the  infallible  teacher  of  God's 
infallible  Church :  you  cannot  fulfill  this  mission  until  you  join 
with  that  rivalry  of  Christian  self-denial  the  rivalry  of  Christian 
purity,  and  a  holy  horror  of  everything  hollow  and  pretentious 
— a  holy  horror  of  shams.  There  are  no  shams  in  the  Catholic 
Church  ;  there  is  nothing  but  shams — religious  shams — outside 
of  her.  You  cannot  fulfill  this  mission  unless  you  seek  to 
sanctify  your  hearts  and  your  lives,  and  to  sweeten  those  lives 
by  prayer,  by  confession,  and  communion ;  and  I  congratulate 
you,  that  in  facing  this  mission,  which  lies  before  every  Catholic 
man, — you  do  it,  not  as  individuals,  but  as  a  body,  as  an  organ- 
ization. We  live  in  an  age  of  organizations.  There  is  nothing 
everywhere  but  organizations,  for  this  thing  or  for  that  ;  and 
nearly  all  of  them  belong  to  the  devil.  It  is  fitting  that  Christ 
our  Lord  should  have  His  ;  it  is  fitting  that  the  Church  should 
have  hers.     You  are  banded  together  in  the  name  of  our  Lord 


45  ^  The  Peace  of  God. 

and  Saviour.  You  remember  that  in  the  Gospel  of  last  Sunday 
the  Evangelist  tell  us — "  These  things  are  written  that  all  men 
may  believe  that  the  Lord  Jesus  is  Christ — the  Son  of  God ; 
and  that,  believing,  they  may  have  life  in  His  name."  In  His 
name  you  are  assembled  together,  bound  by  common  hopes,  by 
a  common  purpose,  which,  without  interfering  at  all  with  your 
daily  duties  or  your  individual  liberty,  still  binds  you  together 
in  a  unity  of  thought,  of  opinion,  and  of  purpose,  to  act  on  this 
great  mass  of  society,  in  which  our  mission  lies — yours  and  mine 
— mine  in  the  Word,  mine  in  labor,  mine  in  undivided  thought, 
for  that  and  nothing  but  that — or  else  I  also  would  be  a  sham ; 
yours  in  the  manner  of  which  I  have  spoken  to  you.  And  you 
are  banded  together  under  the  guidance  of  these  religious  men 
whom  the  Church  honors  by  permitting  them  to  take  the  glori- 
ous name  of  Jesus  as  their  own ;  of  these  men  who,  for  three 
hundred  years,  have  led  the  van  of  the  Holy  Catholic  Church  in 
that  mighty  warfare  that  is  going  on,  which  makes  the  Church 
a  militant  Church ;  of  these  men  whose  fathers  before  them — 
the  saints — received  first  every  blow  that  was  intended  to  strike 
at  the  heart  of  the  Church;  of  these  men  who  are  known 
amongst  the  religious  orders  of  the  Church,  and  represent  the 
Saviour  in  His  risen  glory;  for  they  rose  again  at  the  command 
of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff;  of  these  men  whose  name  is  known  in 
every  land ;  loved  with  the  ardor  of  Catholic  love  ;  hated  and 
detested  with  the  first  and  most  intense  hatred  of  every  man 
that  hates  the  glorious  and  immaculate  Church  of  Christ ;  of 
these  men  who,  for  three  hundred  years,  have  trained  and  led 
the  young  intellect  of  Christendom — have  stamped  upon  every 
young  heart  that  ever  came  under  their  hands,  the  sacred  name 
and  the  sacred  love  which  is  their  own  title  and  their  most 
glorious  crown.  And,  therefore,  I  congratulate  you  with  hope, 
and  a  high  and  well-assured  hope,  that  all  that  God  intends,  all 
that  the  Church  expects  at  your  hands,  in  this  glorious  Mission- 
ary Society — that — all  that — you  will  give  to  God  and  to  His 
Church,  so  as  to  enable  Him  to  repay  you,  ten  thousand  fold,  in 
glory,  in  the  kingdom  of  His  everlasting  joy  ! 


THE  EXILES  OF  ERIN. 


[Lecture  delivered  at  the  Academy  of  Music,  New  York,  May  22d,  1872.! 


ADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN:  One  of  the  strongest 
passions,  and  the  noblest  that  God  has  implanted  in 
the  heart  of  man,  is  the  love  of  the  land  that  bore  him. 
The  poet  says,  and  well : 

"  Breathes  there  a  man  with  soul  so  dead, 
Who  never  to  himself  hath  said, 
This  is  my  own,  my  native  land  ?  " 

The  pleasure  of  standing  upon  the  soil  of  our  birth ;  the 
pleasure  of  preserving  the  associations  that  surrounded  our  boy- 
hood and  our  youth ;  the  pleasure — sad  and  melancholy  though 
it  be — of  watching  every  gray  hair  and  every  wrinkle  that  time 
sends  even  to  those  whom  we  love,  these  are  amongst  the  keen, 
est  and  the  best  pleasures  of  which  the  heart  of  man  is  capable. 
Therefore  it  is  that,  at  all  times,  exile  from  native  land  has  been 
looked  upon  by  men  as  a  penalty  and  a  grievance.  This  is  true 
even  of  men  whom  nature  has  placed  upon  the  most  rugged 
and  barren  soil.  The  Swiss  peasant,  who  lives  amidst  the  ever- 
lasting snows  of  the  Upper  Alps,  who  sees  no  form  of  beauty 
in  nature  except  her  grandest  and  most  austere  and  rugged  pro- 
portions, yet  so  dearly  loves  his  arid  mountain-home,  that  it  is 
heart-breaking  to  him  to  be  banished  from  it,  even  though  he 
were  placed  to  spend  his  exile  in  the  choicest  and  most  delicious 
quarters  of  the  earth.  Much  more  does  the  pain  of  exile  rest 
upon  the  children  of  a  race,  at  once  the  most  generous,  the  most 
kind-hearted,  and  the  most  loving  in  the  world.  Much  more 
does  it  rest  upon  the  children  of  a  race  who  look  back  to  the 
mother-land  as  to  a  fair  and  beautiful  land  ;  a  climate  temperate 


454  The  Exiles  of  Erin. 

and  delicious;  soil  fruitful  and  abundant;  scenery,  now  iising 
into  the  glory  of  magnificence,  now  sinking  into  the  tenderest 
pastoral  beauty  ;  a  history  the  grandest  of  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth ;  associations  the  tenderest,  because  the  most  Christian 
and  the  purest.  And  all  these,  and  more,  aggravate  the  misery 
and  enhance  the  pain  which  the  Irishman,  of  all  other  men, 
feels  when  he  is  exiled  from  his  native  land. 

And  yet,  my  friends,  amongst  the  destinies  of  the  nations, 
the  destiny  of  the  Irish  race,  from  the  earliest  time,  has  been 
that  of  voluntary  or  involuntary  exile.  Two  great  features  dis- 
tinguish the  history  of  our  race  and  our  people.  The  first  of 
those  is  that  we  are  a  warrior  and  warlike  race — quick,  impulsive, 
generous,  fraternal,  and  fond  of  a  fight  for  the  sake  of  a  fight. 
Indeed,  the  student  of  history  must  see  that  wherever  the  Celtic 
blood  is,  there  is  a  taste  for  military  organization  and  for  war. 
Whilst  the  Teuton  and  the  Saxon  are  contented  with  their 
prosperity,  and  very  often  attain  to  the  end  of  their  aims  more 
directly  and  more  successfully  by  negotiations,  the  Celt,  wher- 
ever he  is,  is  always  ready  to  resent  an  insult  or  an  injury,  and 
to  create  one  for  the  sake  of  resenting  it,  very  often  when  it  is 
not  intended.  How  strangely  has  not  this  great  fact  been 
brought  out  in  relation  to  the  great  Celtic  nation  of  France- 
France,  which  is  of  the  same  race,  the  same  stock,  and  the  same 
blood  as  Ireland — France,  to  whom  in  weal  or  woe  the  heart  of 
Ireland  has  always  throbbed  sympathetically ;  exulting  in  her 
joys,  or  lamenting  or  weeping  over  her  sorrows.  Hundreds  of 
years  of  history  lie  before  us;  and  this  French  Celtic  race  has 
always  been  engaged,  in  every  age  and  every  time,  in  war  with 
their  more  prudent  and  more  cold-blooded  neighbors  around 
them.  Now,  if  you  look  through  history,  you  will  invariably 
find  that  France  (or  the  Celt)  was  always  the  first  to  fling  down 
the  glove,  or  draw  the  sword  and  cry  out  "  War !  "  Even  in  the 
late  fatal  war,  things  were  so  managed  and  so  arranged  that,  while 
Bismarck  was  smiling  and  shrugging  his  shoulders,  and  "  invisibly 
washing  his  hands  in  imperceptible  water,"  the  French,  the 
moment  they  saw  that  war  was  possible,  that  moment,  unpre- 
pared as  they  were — not  stopping  to  calculate  or  reflect— they 
rushed  to  the  front.  They  are  trodden  in  the  earth  to-day ;  but 
that  gallant  flag  of  France  has  gone  down  without  dishonor,  as 
long  as  it  was  upheld  by  the  heroic  hands  of  the  Celt. 


The  Exiles  of  Erin.  455 

As  it  was  with  our  French  cousins,  so,  for  good  or  bad  luck, 
us  you  will,  has  it  been  with  ourselves.  From  the  day  that  the 
Dane  landed  in  Ireland,  at  the  close  of  the  eighth  century, 
down  to  this  blessed  day,  at  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
for  the  last  eleven  hundred  years,  Ireland  has  been  fighting ! 
War!  war!  incessant  war!  War  with  the  Dane  for  three  hun- 
dred years  ;  war  with  the  Saxon  for  eight  hundred  years.  And, 
unfortunately  for  Ireland,  if  we  had  not  the  Dane  and  the  Saxon 
to  fight  with,  we  picked  quarrels  and  fought  with  one  another. 

Now  the  second  great  feature  of  our  destiny,  as  traced  in 
our  history,  is  that  it  was  the  will  of  God  and  our  fate  that  a 
large  portion  of  our  people  should  be  constantly  either  driven 
from  the  Irish  shore,  or  obliged  by  the  course  of  circumstances, 
or  apparently  of  their  own  free  will,  to  leave.  The  Irish  Exile 
is  a  name  recognized  in  history.  The  Irish  Exile  is  not  a  being 
of  yesterday  or  of  last  year.  We  turn  over  these  honored  pages 
of  history  ;  we  come  to  the  very  brightest  pages  of  the  national 
records,  and  still  we  find,  emblazoned  upon  the  annals  of  every 
nation  of  the  earth,  the  grand  and  the  most  honored  names  of 
the  Exiles  OF  Erin.  It  is  therefore  to  this  theme  that  I  invite 
your  attention  this  evening.  And  why?  Because,  my  friends, 
I  hold,  as  an  Irishman,  that,  next  to  the  Gospel  I  preach  and  to 
the  religion  that  I  love,  come  the  gospel  and  the  religion  of  my 
love  for  Ireland  and  my  glory  in  her.  Every  point  in  her  history 
that  is  a  record  of  glory,  brings  a  joy  to  your  heart  and  to  mine. 
The  argument  that  builds  up  the  temple  of  Irish  fame  upon  the 
foundations  of  religion  and  valor,  every  argument,  I  say,  is  an 
argument  to  induce  in  your  hearts  and  mine  the  strong,  stormy 
feeling  of  pride  for  our  native  land.  Why  should  we  not  be 
proud  of  her?  Has  she  ever,  in  that  long  record  of  our  history 
— has  she  ever  wronged  or  oppressed  any  people  ?  Never!  Has 
she  ever  attempted  to  plunder  from  any  people  their  sacred 
birthright  of  liberty  ?  Never  !  Has  she  ever  refused,  upon  the 
invitation  of  the  Church  and  her  own  conscience,  to  undo  the 
chains  and  to  strike  them  off  the  limbs  of  the  slave?  Never! 
Has  she  ever  drawn  that  sword,  which  she  has  wielded  for  cen- 
turies, in  an  unjust  or  doubtful  cause?  Never!  Blood  has 
stained  the  sword  of  Ireland  for  ages  :  that  blood  has  dripped 
from  the  national  sword ;  but  never  did  Ireland's  sword  shed  a 
drop  of  blood  unjustly,  but  only  in  the  defense  of  the  highest 


456  The  Exiles  of  Erin. 

and  holiest  and  best  of  causes — the  altar  of  God,  and  the  altar 
of  the  nation. 

And  now,  my  friends,  coming  to  consider  the  "  Exiles  of  Erin," 
I  find  three  great  epochs  are  marked  in  the  history  of  Ireland, 
with  the  sign  of  the  exodus  and  exile  of  her  children  upon  them 
The  first  of  these  goes  back  for  nearly  fourteen  hundred  years 
In  the  year  432,  Patrick,  coming  from  Rome,  preached  the  Ca- 
tholic faith  to  Ireland  ;  and  the  Irish  mind  and  the  Irish  heart 
sprang  to  that  faith,  took  it  and  embraced  it,  and  put  it  into 
her  blood,  and  into  the  lives  of  her  children  ;  and  she  became 
Catholic  under  the  very  hand  of  an  Apo'stle  such  as  no  nation 
on  the  earth  ever  did,  or  ever  will  know,  until  the  end  of  time. 
At  once  the  land  became  a  land,  not  only  of  Christians,  but  of 
saints.  Wise  and  holy  kings  ruled  and  governed  in  Tara.  Wise 
and  saintly  counsellors  guided  them  ;  every  law  was  obeyed  so 
perfectly  and  so  implicitly,  that,  in  the  records  of  our  national 
annals,  it  is  told  that,  under  the  golden  reign  of  the  great  King 
Brian,  a  young  and  unprotected  female  could  walk  from  one  end 
of  the  land  to  the  other,  laden  with  golden  treasure  ;  and  no 
man  would  insult  her  virtue,  or  bring  a  blush  to  her  virgin 
cheek ;  nor  attempt  to  rob  her  of  the  rich  and  valuable  things 
that  she  wore.  Then  the  Irish  heart,  enlarged  and  expanded 
by  the  new  element  of  Christian  charity,  which  was  infused  in 
the  nation,  with  its  religion — the  Irish  mind,  before  so  cultivated 
in  all  pagan  literature,  now  enlightened  with  the  higher  and 
more  glorious  rays  of  faith — this  heart  and  mind  of  Ireland 
looked  out  with  pity  upon  the  nations  who  were  around  them 
sitting  in  darkness,  in  barbarism,  and  in  the  shade  of  death. 
From  the  Irish  monasteries,  in  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries, 
began  the  first  great  exodus,  or  exile  from  Ireland,  which  I  call 
the  exodus,  or  going  forth  of  faith.  Revelling  in  all  the  beauty 
of  her  grandeur,  enjoying  the  blessings  of  peace,  the  light  of 
divine  truth,  the  warmth  of  holy  charity,  enjoying  that  learning, 
until  she  became  the  great  school-house  and  university  of  the 
world — all  the  nations  around  sent  their  youth  to  Ireland  to  be 
instructed.  Then,  these  Irish  and  saintly  masters  of  all  human 
and  divine  knowledge  found,  by  the  accounts  given  by  those 
youthful  scholars,  that  there  was  neither  religion,  nor  faith,  nor 
learning  in  the  countries  around  them.  England,  now  in  the 
possession  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  was  still  in  paganism.     The 


The  Exiles  of  Erin.  457 

ancient  Britons  (now  called  the  Welsh)  had  their  Christianity 
but  they  kept  it  to  themselves.  In  their  hatred  to  their  Saxon 
invaders,  these  British  bishops,  priests,  and  monks  took  the 
most  cruel  form  of  vengeance  that  ever  was  known  to  be  exer- 
cised against  a  nation  They  actually  refused  to  preach  the 
Gospel  to  the  Saxons,  for  fear  the  Saxons  might  be  saved,  and 
get  into  heaven  with  themselves.  Ireland,  evangelized  ;  Ire- 
land, enlightened ;  Ireland,  warmed  with  the  rays  of  divine 
charity,  cast  a  pitying  look  upon  the  neighbor  country;  and  in 
the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries,  numbers  of  Irish  monks  went 
forth  and  travelled  into  Scotland  and  through  the  land  of  Eng- 
land, and  everywhere  preached  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  spreading 
from  the  north  of  England  to  the  remote  north  of  Scotland. 
We  find  them  in  every  land  of  Europe.  We  find  them,  for  in- 
stance, in  the  valleys  of  Switzerland,  which  was  evangelized  by 
the  Irish  St.  Gall,  whose  name  still  marks  a  town  in  that  coun- 
try, whose  name  is  still  held  in  veneration  even  by  those  who 
scarcely  know  the  land  of  his  birth.  We  find  another  Irish 
saint  of  that  time,  Fridolene  or  Fridolind  ;  he  went  through  the 
length  and  breadth  of  Europe,  until  he  was  known  to  all  men 
for  the  greatness  of  his  learning  and  the  power  of  his  preaching, 
and  for  the  wonderful  sanctity  of  his  life.  He  was  called 
"Fridolene  the  Traveller,"  for  he  went  about  from  nation  to 
nation  evangelizing  the  name  of  Christ.  We  find  Columbanus 
going  forth  in  that  seventh  century,  penetrating  into  the  heart 
of  France,  preaching  the  Gospel  to  the  people  of  Burgundy ; 
thence  passing  over  the  Alps  he  descended  into  the  plains  of 
Lombardy.  In  that  very  land  where  St.  Ambrose  and  other 
lights  of  the  Church  had  shone,  Columbanus  preached  the  Gos- 
pel, and  appeared  as  a  new  vision  of  sanctity  and  goodness 
before  the  Italian  people,  who  were  converted  by  the  sound 
of  his  voice.  At  the  same  time  St.  Killian  penetrated 
into  Germany,  and  evangelized  Franconia.  But  the  great- 
est of  all  these  saints  and  Irish  exiles  of  the  seventh  century 
was  the  man  whose  name  is  familiar  to  you  all — whose 
name  is  enshrined  amongst  the  very  highest  saints  of  the 
Church's  calendar — whose  name  and  whose  history  has  fur- 
nished the  material  for  the  Count  Montalembert,  the  greatest 
writer  of  our  age,  who  found  in  the  name  of  the  Irish  St.  Col- 
umba,   or  Columbkille,  the   theme  for   the   very   highest   and 


453  The  Exiles  of  Erin. 

grandest  piece  of  history  that  our  age  has  produced.  The 
history  of  this  saint  is  striking  for  his  extraordinary  sanctity, 
and  yet  brings  out  fully,  forcibly,  and  wonderfully  the  strength 
as  well  as  weakness  of  the  Irish  character.  St.  Columbkille  was 
a  descendant  of  Nial  of  the  Nine  Hostages,  who  founded  in 
Ulster  the  royal  house  of  O'Neill.  His  name  was  O'Neill,  and 
he  was  a  near  relation  to  the  King  of  Ulster.  He  consecrated 
himself  to  God  in  his  youth,  and  became  a  monk.  Speedily  he 
arose  in  the  fame  of  his  learning  and  his  sanctity.  He  studied 
in  Armagh,  in  Mungret,  near  Limerick,  on  the  Shannon ;  and 
went  at  last  to  the  Island  of  Arran,  outside  of  Galway  Bay;  and 
there,  as  he  himself  tells  us,  he  passed  years  of  his  life  in  prayer 
and  study.  Well,  as  you  are  aware,  at  this  early  period,  there 
were  no  books,  because  there  was  no  art  of  printing  ;  and  every 
book  had  to  be  written  out  patiently  in  manuscript.  Books 
were  then  of  such  value  that  the  price  of  a  copy  of  the  Scrip- 
tures would  purchase  a  large  estate.  At  this  time  a  celebrated 
Irish  saint,  St.  Finnian,  had  a  precious  copy  of  the  Book  of 
Psalms,  written  out  in  goodly  characters  upon  leaves  of  parch- 
ment. St.  Columba  wanted  a  copy  of  this  book  for  himself, 
and  he  went  to  St.  Finnian  and  begged  the  privilege  of  the  book 
to  take  a  copy  of  it.  He  was  refused  ;  the  book  was  too  pre- 
cious to  be  trusted  to  him.  Then  he  asked  at  least  to  be  allowed 
to  go  into  the  church  where  the  book  was  deposited ;  and  there 
he  spent  night  after  night,  privately  writing  out  a  clean  copy  of 
it.  By  the  time  St.  Columbkille  had  finished  his  copy,  some- 
body, who  had  watched  him  at  the  work,  went  and  told  St. 
Finnian  that  the  young  man  had  made  a  copy  of  his  psalter. 
The  moment  St.  Finnian  heard  of  it,  he  laid  claim  to  this  copy 
as  belonging  to  him.  St.  Columbkille  refused  to  give  it  up  ; 
and  appealed  to  King  Dermott,  the  Ard-righ,  at  Tara.  The 
king  called  his  counsellors  together;  they  considered  the  matter, 
and  passed  a  decree  that  St.  Columbkille  should  give  up  the 
copy ;  because,  the  original  belonging  to  St.  Finnian,  the  copy 
was  only  borrowed  from  it,  and  should  go  with  it ;  and  the  Irich 
decree  began  with  the  words,  "  Every  cow  has  a  right  to  her 
own  calf."  Now,  mark  the  action  of  Columbkille  ;  a  saint,  a 
man  devoted  to  prayer  and  fasting  all  the  days  of  his  life  ,  a 
man  gifted  with  miraculous  powers  ;  and  yet,  under  all  that,  as 
thorough-bred  an  Irishman  as  ever  lived.    The  moment  he  heard 


The  Exiles  of  Erin  459 

that  the  king  had  resolved  on  giving  back  his  precious  book 
he  reproached  him,  saying:  "  I  am  a  cousin  of  yours;  and  there 
you  went  against  me  !  "  He  put  the  clanship — the  "  sheanachus  ' 
— upon  him.  The  king  said  he  could  not  help  it.  What  did 
St.  Columbkille  do?  He  took  his  book  under  his  arm  and  went 
away  to  Ulster  to  raise  the  clan  of  the  O'Neills.  He  was  him- 
self the  son  of  their  king ;  they  were  a  powerful  clan  in  the 
country ;  and  the  moment  they  heard  their  kinsman's  voice 
they  rose  as  one  man  ;  for  who  ever  asked  a  lot  of  Irishmen  to 
get  up  a  row  and  was  disappointed  ?  They  arose  ;  they  followed 
their  glorious,  heroic  monk  down  into  Westmeath.  There  they 
met  the  king  and  his  army ;  and,  I  regret  to  say,  a  battle  was 
the  consequence,  in  which  hundreds  of  men  were  slain,  and  the 
fair  plains  of  the  country  were  flooded  with  blood.  It  was  only 
then  that  St.  Columbkille  perceived  the  terrible  mistake  he  had 
made.  Like  an  Irishman,  he  first  had  the  fight  out,  and  then 
he  began  to  reflect  on  it  afterward.  In  penance  for  that  great 
crime,  his  confessor,  a  holy  monk  named  Manuel,  condemned 
him  to  go  out  of  Ireland  and  exile  himself,  and  never  again  to 
return  to  the  land  of  his  birth  and  of  his  love.  Nothing  is  more 
beautiful  or  more  tender  than  the  letter  St.  Columbkille  wrote 
to  his  kinsmen  in  Ulster.  "  My  fate  is  sealed,"  he  says,  "  my 
doom  is  sealed.  A  man  told  me  that  I  must  exile  myself  from 
Ireland ;  and  that  man  I  recognize  as  an  angel  of  God ;  and  I 
must  go."  With  breaking  heart  and  weeping  eyes  he  bade  a 
last  farewell  to  the  green  "  Island  of  Saints,"  and  went  to  an 
island  among  the  Hebrides,  on  the  northern  coast  of  Scotland 
There,  in  the  mist  and  storms  of  that  inhospitable  region,  there, 
upon  a  bare  rock,  out  from  the  mainland,  he  built  a  monastery, 
and  there  did  he  found  the  far-famed  school  of  Iona.  That 
school,  founded  under  the  eyes  and  under  the  influence  of  St. 
Columbkille,  became  the  great  mother  and  fountain-head  of 
that  grand  monasticism  which  was  destined  to  evangelize  so 
many  nations,  and  to  Christianize  all  Scotland  and  the  northern 
parts  of  England.  We  shall  return  to  St.  Columbkille  again,  in 
the  course  of  the  lecture,  when  I  come  to  gather  up  the  three 
great  periods  of  exile,  in  speaking  :>f  the  one  love  which  charac- 
terized them  all. 

The  next  century  following,  the   Irish  monk,  St.  Cataldus, 
penetrated  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  Italy,  preaching 


460  The  Exiles  of  Erin. 

everywhere  ;  until  at  length  the  Pope  of  Rome  made  him  Bishop 
of  Sarento,  in  the  south  of  Italy.  Another  Irish  monk,  Rom- 
auld,  went  out  in  the  eighth  century  and  evangelized  Brabant 
and  the  Low  Countries.  Two  Irish  monks,  Clement  and  Albinus, 
were  so  celebrated  throughout  the  schools  of  Europe  in  the 
eighth  century,  that  they  were  known  by  the  name  of  the 
"  Disseminators  of  Wisdom,"  or  the  "  Philosophers."  In  a 
word,  the  Irish  monks  of  the  seventh,  eighth,  and  ninth  centu- 
ries were  the  greatest  evangelists,  and  the  greatest  apostles,  and 
the  most  learned  men  that  the  world  then  possessed.  They 
gave  to  their  island  home  the  strange  title  amongst  the  nations 
of  the  "  Island  of  Saints;"  and  the  sanctity  that  made  Ireland 
the  bright  glory  of  Christendom,  they  poured  abroad  upon  their 
apostolic  labors,  until  they  brought  that  message  which  sancti- 
fied Ireland,  home  to  every  people  in  the  then  known  world. 

For  two  hundred  years  after  Ireland's  Catholicity  was  preached 
to  her  by  St.  Patrick,  no  Catholic  missionary,  was  ever  heard  to 
preach  the  name  of  Christ  to  the  Saxons  of  England.  St.  Pat- 
rick came  to  Ireland  in  the  year  432.  St.  Augustine  came  to 
England,  for  the  first  time,  to  preach  to  the  Saxons,  in  the  year 
596.  Nearly  two  hundred  years  intervened  ;  during  which  time 
St.  Columbkille  and  his  children  had  evangelized  the  Scots  and 
Picts  of  the  north  ;  and  when  the  Roman  monk,  St.  Augustine, 
and  his  Benedictines  came,  they  landed  in  the  south  of  England. 
England  was  then  divided  into  seven  kingdoms,  under  the 
Saxons;  and  thirty-six  years  after  the  death  of  St.  Augustine,  we 
find  that  the  Benedictine  monks,  who  came  from  Rome,  had  only 
preached  to  one  nation  out  of  the  seven,  what  is  now  the  county 
of  Kent — whilst  the  Irish  monks  had  evangelized  and  preached 
the  Gospel  to  all  of  the  other  kingdoms  of  the  Saxon  Heptarchy. 
Therefore,  I  claim  that  from  Ireland,  and  Ireland's  monasticism, 
many  of  the  nations  of  Europe,  and  more  especially  the  Scots 
and  the  kingdom  of  Northumbria  (comprising  all  England  north 
of  the  H umber),  lit  their  lamps,  and  entered  into  the  glorious 
light  of  Christ.  Then  the  light  that  was  in  Ireland  shone  forth 
from  her.  As  when  the  clouds  part  and  let  the  strong  rays  of 
the  noonday  sun  flood  the  darkened  world,  filling  it  with  light 
and  joy  and  worship,  so  the  clouds  of  ignorance  and  paganism 
parted,  and  forth  from  the  pure,  ardent  light  of  Ireland's  Catho- 
licity came  the  faith  which  illumined,  and  brightened,  and  evan- 


The  Exiles  of  Erin.  461 

gelized,  and  saved  all  the  surrounding  countries  during  that  first 
great  exodus  of  Ireland's  faith. 

Is  there  anything  in  all  this  to  be  ashamed  of?  There  arena 
tiono  in  the  world  that  must  go  up  to  the  fountain-head  of  theii 
history,  and  touch,  not  heroes,  not  saints,  but  robbers  and  the 
vilest  men  of  the  earth.  It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  nearly 
every  nation,  when  it  goes  up  to  the  fountain-head  of  its  history, 
has  to  be  very  quiet  and  very  humble,  indeed.  The  Romans,  for 
instance,  who  conquered  the  whole  world,  when  they  trace  their 
history  to  its  fountain-head,  come  to  a  day  when  the  founda- 
tions of  Rome  were  laid  by  Romulus  and  Remus  ;  and  we  find 
that  the  first  inhabitants  of  Rome  were  the  banditti  and  robbers 
who  escaped  from  the  neighboring  cities,  and  came  for  refuge 
into  Rome — the  offscourings  of  Tuscany  and  Latium,  and  all 
the  surrounding  countries.  We  find,  when  it  was  a  question  of 
propagating  the  Roman  people,  the  very  first  thing  these  robbers 
did  was  an  act  worthy  of  them  :  they  rushed  out,  and,  by  force 
and  violence,  took  the  wives  and  daughters  of  their  peaceable 
neighbors.  We  find  that  Romulus,  the  founder  of  Rome,  with 
his  own  hand,  shed  his  brother's  blood,  as  Cain  did  that  of  Abel. 
As  it  was  in  the  first  days  of  Roman  history,  so  it  is  with  nearly 
every  nation.  What  is  English  history?  It  takes  us  back  to  the 
time  when  troops  of  half-naked  barbarians  roamed  over  the  hills 
and  valleys.  Then  came  the  Saxon,  to  take  every  liberty  from 
them,  to  rob  the  ancient  Briton  of  his  country,  and  his  land  ot 
freedom.  What  is  this  but  the  fountain-head  of  history  traced 
up  to  its  barbarism  and  injustice.  But  trace  up  the  far  more 
ancient  history  of  Ireland.  No  man,  even  the  noblest  of  all  on 
the  earth,  can  point  to  such  an  ancestry  as  ours.  Trace  up  that 
history  to  the  days  when  the  Druids  stood  in  Tara ;  when  the 
crowned  monarch  on  the  throne,  with  the  Brehons,  sat  to  ad- 
minister justice — and  listen  to  the  glories  of  their  song.  Trace 
it  up  to  the  very  fountain-head,  and  you  will  find  civilization, 
and  law,  and  power,  and  virtue,  and  glory.  Come  down  but  a 
day  from  out  those  pagan  recesses  of  our  earliest  history — 
come  down  but  a  day  on  the  road  of  time,  and  you  step  into 
the  full  light  of  Ireland's  Christian  holiness  and  glory,  when 
she  was  the  light  of  the  world  and  the  glory  of  the  Church  of 
Christ. 

Now,  my  friends,  we  pass  to  the  second  exodus  ;  and  here, 


462  The  Exiles  of  Erin. 

alas !  it  is  not  the  voluntary  exile  going  forth  from  his  native 
land,  reluctantly  and  regretfully,  yet  impelled  by  the  high  and 
celestial  motives  that  animate  the  heart  of  the  Apostle  and  the 
missionary ;  it  is  not  the  saint  looking  back  with  tearful  eye? 
upon  the  land  which  he  sacrifices  and  abandons  for  the  posses- 
sion of  higher  aims — the  souls  of  men  on  earth  and  the  higher 
place  in  heaven.  No  !  the  second  exodus  in  Ireland  was  one 
of  the  most  terrible  in  her  history.  We  know  that  from  the 
days  when  the  English  invasion  took  shape  and  form — we  know- 
that  in  proportion  as  the  English  got  firm  hold  of  the  land — in 
proportion  as  they  divided  and  consequently  defeated  chieftain 
after  chieftain,  king  after  king — that  in  proportion  as  they  en- 
croached upon  the  Irish  soil,  there  was,  at  last,  no  room  upon 
that  soil  for  a  man  who  loved  his  native  land.  And  this,  my 
friends,  is  one  of  the  worst  consequences  of  national  conquest ; 
this  is  one  of  the  most  terrible  consequences  of  a  nation  being 
subdued  and  enslaved  :  for,  the  moment  the  foreigner  or  the 
invader  sets  his  foot  firmly  on  the  soil,  that  moment  one  of  the 
highest  aims  and  virtues — namely,  the  virtue  of  patriotism — 
becomes  treason  and  a  crime.  But  yesterday,  the  people  of 
Alsace  and  Lorraine  gloried  in  the  name  and  in  the  glory  of 
their  beloved  France.  To-day,  if  the  man  of  Alsace  or  Lor- 
raine only  lifts  his  hat  to  the  statue  of  France,  or  says  in  public 
"  Long  live  ancient  and  glorious  France,"  he  is  taken  and  put 
into  prison,  and  tried  as  a  malefactor  and  arraigned  as  a  traitor 
before  the  tribunals  of  the  country.  And  why?  Because  the 
curse  of  a  foreign  invasion  and  an  unjust  occupation  is  on  the 
land.  If  Germany,  instead  of  being  the  conqueror,  were  the 
conquered  land,  and  the  French  unjustly  and  wickedly  took 
possession  of  the  provinces  within  the  empire,  then  the  German 
would  not  be  able  to  love  his  native  land,  or  to  express  the 
emotions  of  his  heart  without  treason.  So  it  is  in  Ireland  ; 
patriotism  became  a  crime  in  proportion  as  the  English  power 
advanced,  and  the  words  of  the  poet  are  unfortunately  veri- 
fied: 

"  Unprized  are  her  sons  till  they've  learned  to  betray, 

Undistinguished  they  live,  if  they  shame  not  their  sires  ? 
And  the  torch  that  would  light  them  to  dignity's  way 

Must  be  caught  from  the  pile  where  their  country  expires." 

What  wonder  then,  that  we  find  a  people,  naturally  warlike 


The  Exiles  of  Erin.  463 

naturally  high-spirited,  a  people  whose  spirit  was  never  crushed, 
nor  never  knew  how  to  bend,  even  under  centuries  of  oppres- 
sion and  persecution — never;  "the  spirit  of  Ireland,"  says  Tom 
Moore,  "  may  be  broken,  but  never  would  bend  ;  "  what  wonder, 
I  say,  that  this  people,  this  warlike  population,  with  its  high- 
minded  and  time-honored  nobility,  when  they  found  that  they 
could  not  love  their  country  at  home,  where  there  were  inter- 
minable and  everlasting  battles;  that  they  turned  their  faces  to 
other  lands,  and  sought  elsewhere  the  distinction  and  military 
glory  which  their  nationality  and  religion  deprived  them  of  in 
their  native  land  ?  So,  we  find  that,  as  early  as  Elizabeth's  time, 
and  even  in  that  of  Henry  VIII. ,  Irishmen  had  begun  to  emigrate  ; 
and  the  armies  of  Spain,  and  Austria,  and  France  were  glad  to 
receive  them  ;  for  well  they  knew  that  wherever  the  Irish 
soldier  stood  in  the  post  of  danger,  that  post  was  secure  until 
the  enemy  walked  over  the  corpses  of  those  who  defended  it. 

Amongst  many  other  risings,  Ireland  rose  almost  to  a  man  in 
the  year  1641.  The  Confederation  of  Kilkenny  was  formed,  and 
the  Catholics  of  Ireland,  unable  to  bear  longer  the  cruel,  heart- 
less, and  bloody  persecution  of  Elizabeth  and  her  successors, 
banded  together  as  one  man.  All  the  ancient  nobility  of  Ire- 
land, all  the  Catholic  chieftains — the  O'Neills,  the  O'Donnells, 
the  McDermotts,  in  the  North  ;  and  McCarthy  Mor,  in  the 
South  ;  the  O'Reillys,  in  Cavan  ;  the  Clanricarde  Burkes  of 
Connaught ;  the  Geraldines  of  Leinster — in  a  word,  all  the  Irish 
chivalry  and  nobility  came  together,  and  they  formed  a  National 
Confederation  for  the  national  defence.  For  eleven  years  this 
war  was  continued.  An  Irishman  who  had  attained  to  the 
highest  rank  in  the  armies  of  Spain — who  was  the  most  dis- 
tinguished, the  grandest  soldier  of  his  age — came  over — leaving 
his  post  at  the  head  of  the  Spanish  army,  then  the  bravest  and 
finest  in  Europe — and  landed  on  the  shores  of  Ireland.  His 
•'name  was  the  immortal  Owen  Roe  O'Neill.  He  rallied  the 
Irish  forces,  and  met  on  many  a  well-fought  field  the  armies  of 
England.  Thanks  be  to  God  !  though  they  poisoned  him,  they 
could  not  conquer  him  with  the  sword.  Thanks  be  to  God  ! 
there  is  one  Irishman  upon  whose  grave  may  be  written — 
"  Here  lies  a  man  who  never  drew  the  sword  for  Ireland  on  the 
battle-field  without  scattering  his  enemies  like  chaff  before  the 
wind."     He  met,  at  Benburb,  on  the  banks  of  the  Boyne,  the 


464  The  Exiles  of  Erin. 

English  General,  Monroe,  with  a  large  and  well-disciplined  army 
O'Neill  formed  his  men  into  one  solid  column,  flanking  them 
with  his  artillery,  and  giving  the  word  to  advance,  straight  to 
the  very  heart  of  the  English  army  he  pierced  like  an  insur- 
mountable wedge.  The  columns  of  the  English  army  swarmed 
upon  every  side  ;  from  every  quarter  they  came.  Still  on  the 
Irish  went,  until  they  gained  the  brow  of  Benburb  Hill ;  nor 
was  all  the  chivalry  of  England  able  to  stand  against  them. 
When  they  gained  the  brow  of  the  hill,  O'Neill,  on  looking 
around,  could  see  the  enemy  flying  on  every  side,  as  from  the 
avenging  angel  of  God. 

On  that  day,  Ireland  rang  with  the  name  of  O'Neill,  and  was 
reminded  of  the  great  Hugh,  who,  at  the  famous  "  Yellow 
Ford,"  met  the  English  Field-Marshal  Bagenal,  at  the  head  of  a 
large  army.  He  not  only  routed  him,  but  exterminated  his 
army,  and  scarcely  left  a  man  to  go  home  to  their  strongholds 
around  Dublin,  to  tell,  with  blanched  lips,  the  tale  that  they  had 
been  destroyed  by  the  Irish. 

Cromwell  landed  in  Ireland  ;  and  Owen  Roe  O'Neill,  at  the 
head  of  his  army,  advanced  from  the  North  to  measure  swords 
with  the  Roundhead  of  England.  Ah!  well  they  knew  the 
mettle  the  man  was  made  of;  and  they  sent  a  traitor  into  his 
camp  to  put  poison  into  the  Irishman's  wine ! 

In  the  death  of  Owen  Roe  O'Neill,  the  great  Confederation 
of  Ireland  was  broken ;  so  that,  with  divided  counsels,  they 
scarcely  knew  whom  to  obey;  until  on  the  12th  of  May,  1652, 
eleven  years  after  the  Confederation  was  established,  Galway, 
the  last  stronghold  of  the  Irish,  had  to  yield.  The  cause  was 
lost — lost  again  !  and  the  Irish  nobility,  and  the  rank  and  file 
of  the  Irish  army,  rather  than  remain  at  home  and  serve  as 
soldiers  with  Cromwell,  went  to  France,  Austria,  and  Spain,  and 
left  their  mark  upon  the  history  of  Europe,  as  that  history  is 
proud  to  record. 

On  the  27th  of  October,  1652,  Limerick  fell.  Forty  years 
later,  Ireland  is  in  arms  again.  This  time  the  English  king  is  at 
their  head — King  James  the  Second.  I  wish  to  God  he  had 
been  a  braver  man  ;  he  would  not  then  have  deserved  the  name 
of  "  Slicamus  ahocka !  "  He  was  too  fond  of  taking  out  his 
handkerchief,  and  putting  it  to  his  eyes,  and  crying  out  to  the 
Irish  soldiers — "  Oh  !  spare  my  English  subjects !  "  and  when 


The  Exiles  oj  Erin.  465 

the  Irish  dragoons  were  sweeping  down  upon  Schomberg,  on 
the  slopes  of  the  Boyne— when  the  Irish  dragoons  would  have 
driven  the  Brunswickcrs  into  that  river,  and  the  history  of  Ire- 
land would  have  taken  from  the  beautiful  Boyne  the  name  of 
reproach  it  has  to  this  day — James  was  the  first  to  give  orders, 
"  Stop  a  little  !  don't  let  them  make  so  desperate  a  charge  !  " 
Any  man  that  knows  the  history  of  his  country  knows  that,  if 
we  study  the  actions  and  valor  of  the  Irish  army  at  that  very 
Boyne — at  Athlone — at  Aughrim — although  they  lost  the  field, 
they  did  not  lose  their  honor  ;  but  they  crowned  their  loss  with 
immortal  glory.  At  length  the  campaign  drew  to  a  close  ;  and 
when  1691  came — forty  years  after  the  former  siege  of  Limerick 
— the  heroic  city  is  once  more  surrounded  by  the  flower  of  the 
English  army  ;  while  within  its  walls  were  ten  thousand  Irishmen, 
with  Patrick  Sarsfield,  Earl  of  Lucan,  at  their  head.  A  breach 
was  made  in  the  walls  ;  three  times  the  whole  strength  of  the 
English  army  was  hurled  against  the  defenders  of  the  walls  of 
Limerick.  Three  times  within  that  breach  arose  the  wild  shout 
of  the  Irish  soldiers  ;  and  three  times  was  the  whole  might  of 
Orange  William's  army  swept  away  from  that  breach.  In  the 
third  of  these  assaults,  combatants  appeared  who  are  not  gen- 
erally seen,  either  on  the  battle-field  or  at  the  hustings  in  Ire- 
land. The  Irish  women  are  not  what  you  call  "  Women's  rights 
people."  The  women  of  Ireland  do  not  go  in  much  for 
"  women's  associations  ;"  and  they  do  not  go  in  at  all  for  "  Free 
Love;"  but  they  "went  for"  the  English  in  the  last  assault. 
The  brave,  dark-eyed  mothers  and  daughters  of  Southern  Ire- 
land stood,  shoulder  to  shoulder,  with  their  brothers  and  fathers. 
In  the  breach  they  stood  ;  and,  whilst  the  men  defended  Irish 
nationality,  in  that  terrible  hour,  the  women  of  Ireland  raised 
their  strong  hands  in  defence  of  Ireland's  purity  and  Ireland's 
right.  Well  they  might !  for  never  had  womanhood  a  more 
sacred,  pure,  and  honorable  cause  to  defend,  than  when  the 
women  of  Limerick  opposed  the  base  and  evil-minded  invaders 
of  their  country. 

Well,  Limerick  yielded.  King  William  and  his  generals 
found  they  could  not  take  the  city ;  so  they  made  terms  with 
Sarsfield  and  his  men,  to  the  effect,  that  the  Irish  army  were  to 
go  out  with  drums  beating,  colors  flying,  and  with  arms  in  their 
hands ;  free  to  stay  in  Ireland,  if  they  wished  ;  or  to  join  the 


466  The  Exiles  of  Erin. 

service  of  any  foreign  power  they  pleased.  The  Treaty  of 
Limerick  granted  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  as  much  religious 
liberty  as  they  enjoyed  under  the  Stuarts.  That  treaty  was 
won  by  the  bravery  of  the  Irish  soldiers  within  the  shattered 
walls  of  Limerick.  The  Treaty  of  Limerick  granted  the  Irish 
merchants  the  same  privileges  and  the  same  rights  as  the  Eng- 
lish merchants  had.  But,  as  soon  as  Sarsfield  and  his  thirty 
thousand  soldiers  were  gone,  before  the  ink  was  dry  upon  the 
treaty,  it  was  broken.  The  Lord  Justices  that  signed  it  returned 
to  Dublin,  and  a  certain  Mr.  Dopping  (he  was  the  Protestant 
Bishop  of  Meath)  preached  a  sermon  ;  and  the  subject  of  that 
sermon  was,  on  the  sin  of  keeping  their  oaths  with  the  Cath- 
olics !  The  treaty  was  broken  ere  the  ink  upon  it  was  scarce 
dry ;  and  a  period  of  confiscation  and  misery  most  terrible  fol- 
lowed. 

Meantime,  Sarsfield  and  his  poor  companions  took  themselves 
to  France.  "  Exiles  of  Hope,"  they  went  in  the  hope  that  they 
would  one  day  return  with  their  brave  French  allies,  and  sweep 
the  Saxons  from  off  the  soil  of  Erin.  By  the  time  Sarsfield 
arrived  in  France  (1691),  there  were  thirty  thousand  Irishmen  in 
the  service  of  King  Louis.  There  were,  at  the  same  time,  some 
ten  thousand  in  the  service  of  Spain,  and  an  equal  number  in 
the  service  of  Austria  ;  and  it  is  worthy  of  notice  that  the  Irish- 
men of  Leinsterand  of  Meath  joined  the  service  of  Austria,  with 
their  leaders,  the  Nugents  and  the  Kavanaghs — names  still  per- 
petuated in  the  Austrian  army.  I  myself  knew  a  Field-Marshal 
Nugent,  of  Irish  descent,  in  the  Austrian  army.  The  men  of 
the  North  went  to  Spain,  under  the  O'Reillys  and  the  O'Don- 
nells.  At  that  very  time  Austria  and  Spain  were  fighting  against 
France.  So  that,  whilst  there  were  thirty  thousand  Irishmen  in 
the  French  army,  there  were  nearly  twenty  thousand  in  the 
other  armies.  There  the  bone  and  sinew  and  the  blood  of 
Ireland  were  engaged  in  the  work — the  unhappy  work — of 
slaughtering  one  another !  Oh,  how  sad  to  think  that  the 
bravest  soldiers  that  ever  stood — the  bravest  in  the  world — that 
they  should  be  thus  employed,  fighting  for  causes  of  which  they 
knew  nothing,  and  for  monarchs  who  cared  nothing  about  them  • 
and  the  hands  which  should  have  been  joined  for  Ireland,  in 
some  glorious  effort  for  Irish  purposes,  were  actually  imbrued  in 
their  brothers'  blood  on  many  a  battle-field  in  Europe.     Sars- 


The  Exiles  of  Erin.  467 

field,  shortly  after  his  arrival  with  his  Connaught  men  and  Mun- 
ster  men,  took  service  with  King  Louis  of  France.  He  first 
crossed  swords  with  the  English  at  the  siege  of  a  town  of  Flan- 
ders. There  he  so  behaved  with  his  Irishmen,  and  so  thor- 
oughly cleared  the  field,  so  completely  swept  away  the  English 
that  were  opposed  to  him,  bearing  down  upon  them  when  they 
first  wavered,  with  the  awful  dash  of  Lord  Clare's  dragoons,  that 
Sarsfield  was  created  a  Marshal  of  France.  We  find  him  again 
at  the  Battle  of  Landen.  He  is  at  the  head  of  the  Irish  Brigade, 
and  opposed  to  him  is  King  William — Orange  William — whom 
he  had  often  met  upon  many  a  field  before.  Now  the  close  of  a 
hard-fought  day  is  approaching.  The  English,  with  their  Dutch 
auxiliaries,  are  in  full  flight.  Sarsfield,  with  his  sword  in  hand 
was  at  the  head  of  his  troops  ;  when  suddenly  a  musket-ball 
struck  that  heroic  breast,  and  he  falls  upon  the  field  of  glory. 
When  the  film  of  death  was  coming  over  his  eyes,  he  placed  his 
hand  unconsciously  to  the  wound,  and  withdrawing  it  covered 
with  his  heart's  blood,  he  cried  :  "  O  God,  that  this  blood  were 
shed  for  Ireland  !  " 

The  fortunes  of  the  French  were  now  in  the  ascendant,  from 
the  year  1691  to  1696.  Then  the  powerful  Duke  of  Marlborough 
arose  with  Prince  Eugene,  at  the  head  of  the  Austrian  army; 
and  France  began  to  suffer  reverses.  The  star  of  France  began 
to  go  down.  Marlborough  conquered  on  many  a  glorious  field, 
and  with  the  English  soldiers  drove  the  French  before  him,  at 
Malplaquet,  at  Oudenard,  at  Ramillies,  and  other  places.  But 
it  is  a  singular  thing,  which  history  records,  that,  in  every  one 
of  these  battles,  in  which  the  French  were  defeated,  the  Eng- 
lish, often  in  the  hour  of  their  victory,  had  to  fly  before  the 
Irish  Brigade.     So  the  poet  says: 

When  on  Ramillies'  bloody  field, 
The  baffled  French  were  forced  to  yield, 
The  victor  Saxnos  backward  reeled, 
Before  the  charge  of  Clare's  Dragoons." 

Yes,  the  French  army  on  that  day  were  routed  ;  but  there  was 
one  division  of  that  army  that  retired  from  the  field  victorious, 
and  with  the  English  standards  which  they  had  captured  in  their 
hands.     And  this  was  the  Irish  Brigade. 

Years  followed  years,  but  the  strength  of  the  exiles  was  still 


468  The  Exiles  of  Erin. 

kept  up  by  the  hope  that  they  would  one  day  return  to  Ireland 
and  strike  a  blow  for  their  dear  old  land.  Years  followed  years — 
Sarsfield  was  in  his  grave  more  than  forty  years.  France  was 
still  playing  a  losing  game  in  the  war  of  the  Spanish  succession, 
Marshal  Saxe  arose,  and  with  King  Louis  XIV.  laid  siege  tc 
Tournay,  in  Flanders.  He  had  seventy-five  thousand  men 
under  his  command.  Whilst  he  was  still  besieging  the  city,  the 
Duke  of  Cumberland,  the  son  of  George  II. — one  of  the  most 
awful  wretches  that  ever  cursed  the  face  of  the  earth  with  his 
presence ;  a  man  whose  heart  knew  no  pity ;  a  man  who  mowed 
down  the  poor  Highlanders  at  Culloden ;  a  man  whose  heart 
knew  no  love,  whose  passions  knew  no  restraint ;  whose  name  to 
this  day  is  spoken  by  every  Englishman  in  a  whisper,  as  if  he 
was  ashamed  of  it — he  commanded  fifty-five  thousand  men, 
mostly  English,  with  some  Dutch  auxiliaries ;  and  marched  at 
the  head  of  this  tremendous  army  to  raise  tflfc  siege  of  Tournay. 
When  the  French  king  heard  of  the  approach  of  the  English 
he  took  forty-five  thousand  men  from  the  siege,  and  leaving 
eighteen  thousand  to  continue  it,  went  on  with  the  rest,  includ- 
ing the  Irish  Brigade,  to  meet  the  Duke  of  Cumberland.  They 
met  him  on  the  slopes  of  Fontenoy.  The  French  general  took 
his  position  upon  the  village  of  Fontenoy.  It  was  on  the 
crowning  slope  of  this  hill,  which  extended  on  every  side,  he 
stretched  his  line,  on  one  side,  to  the  village  called  St.  Antoine, 
on  the  other  side,  through  a  wood  called  De  Barri's  wood  ;  and 
there  entrenched,  and  strongly  established,  he  waited  his  English 
foe.  Cumberland  arrived  at  the  head  of  his  English  army,  and 
the  whole  day  long  assaulted  the  French  position,  in  vain.  He 
sent  his  Dutchmen  to  attack  St.  Antoine  ;  twice  they  attacked 
the  village,  and  the  lines — and  twice  were  they  driven  back  with 
slaughter.  Three  times  the  English  themselves  advanced  to  the 
village  of  Fontenoy  ;  three  times  were  they  driven  back  by  the 
French.  They  tried  to  penetrate  into  De  Barri's  wood,  on  the 
left,  but  the  French  artillery  were  massed  within  ;  and  again  and 
again  were  they  driven  back ;  until,  when  the  evening  was  com- 
ing, the  Duke  of  Cumberland,  seeing  the  day  was  going  against 
him,  assembled  all  the  veteran  and  tried  soldiers  of  his  army, 
and  formed  a  massive  column  of  six  thousand  men,  six  pieces 
of  cannon  in  front  of  them,  and  six  on  either  side  of  them. 
They  were   placed   under   command   of  Lord  John  Hay ;  and 


The  Exiles  of  Erin.  469 

lie  adopted  the  same  tactics  which  Owen  Roe  O'Neill  adopted 
at  Benburb.  Forming  the  six  thousand  men  in  a  solid  column, 
he  gave  orders  to  march  right  through  the  village  of  Fontenoy — 
right  through  the  centre  of  the  French — until  they  got  into  their 
rear — and  then  to  turn  and  sweep  them  off  the  field.  The  word 
was  given  to  march  ;  and  this  I  will  say — Irishman  as  I  am  to 
the  heart's  core — I  have  read  as  much  of  the  world's  history  as 
the  majority  of  men  ;  and  I  must  say  that,  never  in  the  annals 
of  history  have  I  read  of  anything  more  glorious  than  the  hero- 
ism of  these  six  thousand  EnglisTimen  that  day.  The  French 
closed  in  around  them  ;  they  battered  the  head  of  the  column 
with  cannon  ;  but  that  column  marched  on  like  a  wall  of  iron. 
These  Englishmen  marched  through  the  French  lines  ;  their  men 
fell  on  every  side,  but  as  soon  as  a  man  fell,  another  stepped 
into  his  place.  On  they  marched  like  a  wall  of  iron,  penetrating 
into  the  French  lines.  In  vain  the  French  tirailleurs  hung 
upon  their  flanks  ;  in  vain  did  the  French  army  oppose  them  ; 
they  penetrated  it  like  a  wedge ;  in  vain  did  the  King's  Household" 
Cavalry  charge  upon  them ;  they  were  scattered  by  the  English 
fire;  until  at  length,  King  Louis  (taught  in  the  school  of  misfor- 
tune) turned  his  rein  to  fly.  Marshal  Saxe  stopped  him.  "  Not 
yet,  my  liege,"  he  said.  "  Come  up,  Lord  Clare,  with  your  Irish. 
^•A.5  <u)  beaUc,  clear  the  way  !  "  Oh  !  to  hear  the  wild  cheer  with 
which  the  Irish  Brigade  rushed  into  the  fight  that  day  !  This 
glorious  victory  is  thus  recorded  by  one  of  Ireland's  greatest 
poets,  the  illustrious  and  immortal  Thomas  Davis: 

Thrice,  at  the  huts  of  Fontenoy,  the  English  column  failed, 

And,  twice,  the  lines  of  Saint  Antoine,  the  Dutch  in  vain  assailed ; 

For  town  and  slope  were  filled  with  fort  and  flanking  battery, 

And  well  they  swept  the  English  ranks,  and  Dutch  auxiliary. 

As  vainly  through  De  Barri's  wood  the  British  soldiers  burst, 

The  French  artillery  drove  them  back,  diminished  and  dispersed. 

The  bloody  Duke  of  Cumberland  beheld  with  anxious  eye, 

And  ordered  up  his  last  reserve,  his  latest  chance  to  try : 

On  Fon'.enoy,  on  Fontenoy,  how  fast  his  Generals  ride ! 

And  mustering  come  his  chosen  troops,  like  clouds  at  eventide 

Six  thousand  English  veterans  in  stately  column  tread, 
Their  cannon  blaze  in  front  and  flank  ;  Lord  Hay  is  at  their  head  ; 
Steady  they  step  adown  the  slope — steady  they  climb  the  hill  ; 
Steady  they  load — steady  they  fire,  moving  right  onward  still. 
Betwixt  the  wood  and  Fontenoy,  as  through  a  furnace  blast. 
Through  rampart,  trench,  and  palisade,  and  bullets  showering  fast ; 


47°  The  Exiles  of  hrin. 

And  on  the  open  plain  above  they  rose,  and  kept  their  course, 
With  ready  fire  and  grim  resolve,  that  mocked  at  hostile  force  : 
Past  Fontenoy,  past  Fontenoy,  while  thinner  grow  their  ranks — 
They  break,  as  broke  the  Zuyder  Zee  through  Holland's  ocean  banks. 

More  idly  than  the  Summer  file's,  French  tirailleurs  rush  round  ; 

As  stubble  to  the  lava  tide,  French  squadrons  strew  the  ground ; 

Bomb-shell,  and  grape,  and  round-shot  tore  ;  still  on  they  marched  and  fired— 

Fast,  from  each  volley,  grenadier  and  voltigeur  retired. 

"  Push  on,  my  household  cavalry  !  "  King  Louis  madly  cried  ; 

To  death  they  rush,  but  rude  their  shock — not  unavenged  they  died. 

On  through  the  camp  the  column  trod — King  Louis  turns  his  rein ; 

"  Not  yet,  my  liege,"  Saxe  interposed,  "  the  Irish  troops  remain." 

And  Fontenoy,  famed  Fontenoy,  had  been  a  Waterloo, 

Were  not  these  exiles  ready  then,  fresh,  vehement,  and  true. 

"  Lord  Clare,"  he  says,  "  you  have  your  wish — there  are  your  Saxon  fogp ! 

The  Marshal  almost  smiles  to  see,  so  furiously  he  goes ! 

How  fierce  the  look  these  exiles  wear,  who're  wont  to  be  so  gay — 

The  treasured  wrongs  of  fifty  years  are  in  their  hearts  to-day — 

The  treaty  broken,  ere  the  ink  wherewith  'twas  writ  could  dry ; 

Their  plundered  homes,  their  ruined  shrines,  their  women's  parting  cry  ; 

Their  priesthood  hunted  down  like  wolves,  their  country  overthrown  ; — 

Each  looks,  as  if  revenge  for  all  were  staked  on  him  alone. 

On  Fontenoy,  on  Fontenoy,  nor  ever  yet  elsewhere, 

Rushed  on  to  fight  a  nobler  band  than  those  proud  exiles  were. 

O'Brien's  voice  is  hoarse  with  joy,  as,  halting,  he  commands, 
4  Fix  bay'nets" — "  Charge  !  "    Like  mountain  storm  rush  on  these  fiery  band* 
Thin  is  the  English  column  now,  and  faint  their  volleys  grow, 
Yet,  must'ring  all  the  strength  they  have,  they  make  a  gallant  show. 
They  dress  their  ranks  upon  the  hill  to  face  that  battle  wind — 
Their  bayonets  the  breakers'  foam  ;  like  rocks  the  men  behind  ! 
One  volley  crashes  from  their  line,  when,  through  the  surging  smoke, 
With  empty  guns  clutched  in  their  hands,  the  headlong  Irish  broke. 
On  Fontenoy,  on  Fontenoy,  hark  to  that  fierce  huzza  ! 
"  Revenge  !  remember  Limerick  !  dash  down  the  Sassanach ! " 

Like  lions  leaping  at  a  fold,  when  mad  with  hunger's  pang, 

Right  up  against  the  English  line  the  Irish  exiles  sprang : 

Bright  was  their  steel,  'tis  bloody  now  ;  their  guns  are  filled  with  goie  > 

Through  shattered  ranks,  and  severed  files,  and  trampled  flags  they  tore. 

The  English  strove  with  desperate  strength  ;  paused,  rallied,  staggered,  fled  - 

The  green  hill-side  is  matted  close  with  dying  and  with  dead. 

Across  the  plain,  and  far  away  passed  on  that  hideous  wrack, 

While  cavalier  and  fantassin  dash  in  upon  their  track. 

On  Fontenoy,  on  Fontenoy,  like  eagles  in  the  sun, 

With  bloody  plumes  the  Irish  stand — the  field  is  fought  and  won  1 


The  Exiles  of  Erin.  471 

So  they  fought,  serving  in  France,  in  Spain,  and  in  Austria  ■ 
but  the  hope  that  kept  them  up  was  never  realized. 

The  French  Revolution  came,  and  the  Irish  Brigade  was  dis- 
solved. That  French  Revolution  opened  the  way  for  the  third 
exodus  from  Ireland.  The  Irish  got  a  ray  of  hope  when  the 
wild  cry  of  freedom  resounded  on  the  battle-fields  of  Europe. 
The  fever  of  the  French  Revolution  spread  to  Ireland,  and 
created  the  insurrection  of  '98.  '98,  and  the  men  of  '98,  were 
extinguished  in  blood.  Bravely  they  fought,  and  well ;  and  had 
Sarsfield  himself,  or  the  heroic  Lord  Clare,  been  at  New  Ross, 
or  at  the  foot  of  Tara's  Hill,  on  the  banks  of  the  Boyne,  when 
the  ninety  Wexford  men  fought  a  regiment  of  British  dragoons, 
they  would  not  have  been  ashamed  of  their  countrymen. 

The  year  1800  saw  Ireland  deprived  of  her  Parliament ;  and 
from  that  day  every  honest  Irishman,  who  loved  his  country, 
had  an  additional  argument  to  turn  his  eyes  to  some  other  land. 
The  making  of  our  laws  was  passed  over  to  the  English.  They 
knew  nothing  about  us ;  they  had  no  regard  for  us ;  they 
wished,  as  their  acts  proved,  to  destroy  the  industry  of  Ireland  ; 
and  some  of  the  very  first  acts  of  the  United  Parliament,  when 
it  was  transferred  to  England,  were  for  the  destruction  of  the 
commerce  and  trade  of  Ireland.  Some  of  the  first  things  they 
did  were  to  repeal  the  acts  of  the  glorious  epoch  of  1782,  when 
the  "  Irish  Volunteers,"  with  arms  in  their  hands,  were  able  to 
exact  justice  from  the  Government  of  England. 

But  now,  Ireland  turned  with  wistful  eyes.  From  her  west- 
ern slopes  she  looked  across  the  ocean  ;  and,  far  away  in  the 
west,  she  beheld  a  mighty  country  springing  up,  where  the 
exile  might  find  a  home,  where  freemen  might  find  air  to 
breathe,  and  where  the  lover  of  his  country  might  find  a  country 
worthy  of  his  love.  We  may  say  that  the  emigration  to  America 
took  shape  and  form  from  the  day  Ireland  lost  her  legislative 
independence,  by  the  transfer  of  her  Parliament  to  England ; 
for,  next  to  the  privilege  of  loving  his  country,  the  dearest 
privilege  any  man  can  have  is  that  of  having  a  voice  in  the 
government  and  the  making  of  his  own  laws.  By  the  Act  of 
Union,  a  debased,  corrupted,  and  perjured  Protestant  Irish 
Parliament  declared,  in  the  face  of  the  world,  that  Irishmen 
did  not  know  how  to  make  laws  for  themselves ;  and  if  they 
did  not,   no  man  can  blame  Castlereagh    for   taking  them  at 


472  The  Exiles  of  Erin. 

their  own  word.  He  was  an  Irishman,  and  he  took  the  legis- 
lative assembly  from  Dublin  and  transferred  it  to  London , 
but  if  he  did,  it  was  that  very  assembly  itself  that  voted  fof 
its  own  transfer  and  its  own  destruction.  In  vain  did  Grattan 
rise — the  immortal  Henry  Grattan  ;  in  vain  did  he  thunder  forth 
in  the  cause  of  justice  and  of  Irish  nationality.  In  vain  did 
every  honest  man  lift  up  his  voice.  The  corrupt  legislature 
played  into  the  hands  of  Pitt  and  Castlereagh,  and  Castlereagh 
carried  his  measure ;  and  went  on  rejoicing  under  his  titles  and 
honors,  and  increasing  in  power,  and  dignity,  and  wealth ;  until, 
one  fine  morning,  he  tried  the  keen  edge  of  a  razor  on  his  own 
throat.  He  cut  his  jugular  artery,  and  inflicted  on  himself  a 
tremendous  inconvenience.  Whatever  things  he  had  to  fear  in 
this  world,  I  am  greatly  afraid  he  did  not  improve  his  position 
by  hurrying  into  the  other.  But  what  was  so  inconvenient  to 
Castlereagh,  was  a  great  blessing  to  Ireland,  to  England,  and  to 
the  whole  world ;  for  it  is  a  great  blessing  to  this  world  when 
any  scoundrel  makes  his  bow  and  goes  out  of  it. 

Well,  my  friends,  it  is  of  these  early  exiles — the  exiles  of  '98 
—the  exiles  who  went  in  the  preceding  years,  under  William's 
persecutions — the  exiles  who  were  banished  by  Cromwell,  when 
one  hundred  thousand  men — and  among  them  four  hundred  and 
fifty  priests  of  my  own  Order — were  sent  as  slaves  to  the  Barba- 
does,  and  there  died  in  the  sugar  plantations ;  it  was  of  these 
exiles  that  the  Scottish  poet,  Campbell,  wrote  his  famous  verses 
on  the  "  Exile  of  Erin."  The  lines  of  this  famous  poem  are  of 
a  time  anterior  to  our  own.  He  speaks  of  the  Irish  exile  as  one 
who  was  playing  upon  a  harp.  Now,  up  to  about  seventy  years 
ago,  the  harp  was  a  common  instrument  in  Ireland  ;  and  the 
aged  harpers  lived  down  to  the  days  of  Carolan,  who  died  a 
few  years  before  the  troubles  of  '98  began.  We  can,  therefore, 
enter  into  the  sentiment  of  the  poet,  who  thus  describes  our  un- 
fortunate countryman,  driven  by  force  and  oppression  from  all 
that  he  loved  and  cherished  on  this  earth : 

"  There  came  to  the  beach  a  poor  exile  of  Erin, 

The  dew  on  his  thin  robe  was  heafy  and  chill ; 
For  his  country  he  sighed,  when  at  twilight  repairing 

To  wander  alone  by  the  wind-beaten  hill. 
But  the  day-star  attracted  his  eye's  sad  devotion, 
For  it  rose  o'er  his  own  native  isle  of  the  ocean  ; 
Where  once,  in  the  fire  of  his  youthful  emotion, 

He  sang  the  bold  anthem  of  Erin  go  Bragh. 


The  Exiles  of  Ertn.  473 

"Oh,  sad  is  my  fate,  said  the  heart-broken  stranger, 

The  wild-deer  and  wolf  to  a  covert  can  flee  ; 
But  I  have  no  refuge  from  famine  and  danger ; 

A  home  and  a  country  remain  not  for  me  ! 
Ah  !  never  again  in  the  green  shady  bowers, 
Where  my  forefathers  lived,  shall  I  spend  the  sweet  hours. 
Or  cover  my  harp  with  the  wild-woven  flowers, 

And  strike  the  sweet  numbers  of  Erin  go  Bragh. 

*  O  Erin  !  my  country,  though  sad  and  forsaken, 

In  dreams  I  revisit  thy  sea-beaten  shore  ; 
But,  alas !  in  a  far  foreign  land  I  awaken, 

And  sigh  for  the  friends  that  can  meet  me  no  more. 
Oh,  cruel  fate,  wilt  thou  never  replace  me 
In  a  mansion  of  peace,  where  no  perils  can  chase  me  ? 
Ah  !  never  again  shall  my  brothers  embrace  me  ! 

They  died  to  defend  me,  or  live  to  deplore. 

Where  is  my  cabin-door,  fast  by  the  wild  wood  ? 

Sisters  and  sire,  did  ye  weep  for  its  fall  ? 
Where  is  the  mother  that  looked  on  my  childhood  ? 

And  where  is  the  bosom-friend,  dearer  than  all  ? 
Ah,  my  sad  heart,  long  abandoned  by  pleasure, 
Why  did  it  doat  on  a  fast-fading  treasure  ? 
Tears,  like  the  rain-drops,  may  fall  without  measure, 
But  rapture  and  beauty  they  cannot  recall. 

But  yet,  all  its  fond  recollections  suppressing, 

One  dying  wish  my  lone  bosom  shall  draw  : 
Erin,  an  exile  bequeathes  thee  his  blessing, 

Land  of  my  forefathers,  Erin  go  Bragh  ! 
Buried  and  cold,  when  my  heart  stills  its  motion, 
Green  be  thy  fields,  sweetest  isle  of  the  ocean  ; 
And  thy  harp-striking  bards  sing  aloud  with  devotion, 

Erin,  mavourneen,  Erin  go  Bragh  !  " 

As  the  first  of  these  exiles  was  that  of  faith,  that  that  faith 
might  be  disseminated  throughout  the  earth  ;  and  as  the  second 
emigration  was  that  of  the  warrior,  going  forth  full  of  hope — a 
hope  that  was  never  realized — so,  the  last  emigration  from  Ire- 
land was  the  emigration  of  love.  It  was  the  tearing  of  loving 
hearts  from  all  that  they  cherished,  all  that  they  loved  in  this 
world ;  the  injustice  and  the  tyranny  of  the  land  possessors  of 
Ireland  ;  the  injustice  of  the  wicked  government  of  England, 
gloating  over  the  work  of  the  "  Crowbar  Brigade ;  "  the  people 
taken  from  their  homesteads  and  flung  into  the  ditches  to  die 
like  dogs  ;  no  law  protecting  them  ;  no  rights  of  their  own  to  be 
asserted ;  no  rights,  save  the  right  to  suffer  ;  to  be  evicted  and 


474  The  Exiles  of  Erin. 

to  die.  Ah,  who  amongst  us  has  ever  seen  the  parting  of  the 
old  man  from  his  sons  and  daughters ;  who  amongst  us  has  ever 
heard  the  heart-broken  cry  go  forth  when  those  loving  hearts  were 
separated ;  who  amongst  us,  that  has  seen  and  heard,  can  ever 
forget  those  things  !  No  ;  the  youth  of  Ireland,  the  bone  and 
sinew,  fled.  Many  aged  men  and  women  remained  in  the  land, 
and  sat  down  upon  their  family  graves  to  weep,  and  to  die  with 
broken  hearts.  But  one  emotion,  one  glorious  passion  ruled 
the  emigrant  of  faith  of  fourteen  hundred  years  ago,  the  emi- 
grant warrior  of  two  hundred  years  ago,  and  the  emigrant  of 
love  of  the  present  day ;  one  glorious  feeling,  one  absorbing 
passion,  and  that  was,  their  love  for  Ireland.  Hear  the  lament 
of  St.  Columbkille,  one  of  Ireland's  greatest  saints,  greatest 
poets,  and  greatest  sons,  who  banished  himself,  in  penance,  to 
the  far-distant  island  of  Iona.  He  tells  us  that,  when  he  wished 
to  calm  the  sorrow  of  his  heart,  he  generally  sat  upon  the  high 
rocks  of  the  island,  and  turned  his  eyes  to  catch  a  glimpse  of 
the  faint  outline  of  the  shore  of  Ireland.  "  Death,"  he  exclaimed, 
in  one  of  his  poems — "  Death  in  faultless  Ireland  is  better  than 
life  without  end,  in  Albin." 

"  Death,  in  faultless  Ireland,  is  better  than  life  without  end,  in  Albin  ; 

What  joy  to  fly  upon  the  white-crested  sea,  and  watch  the  waves  break  upon  the  Irish 

shore !  », 

What  joy  to'  row  in  my  little  boat,  and  land  upon  the  whitening  foam  of  the  Irish 

shore ! 
Ah  !  how  my  boat  would  fly  if  its  prow  were  turned  to  my  Irish  oak-groves  ; 
But  the  noble  sea  now  carries  me  to  Albin,  the  land  of  the  raven. 
My  foot  is  in  my  little  boat,  but  my  sad  heart  bleeds  ;  and  there  is  a  gray  eye  which 

ever  turns  to  Erin. 
Never,  in  this  sad  life,  shall  I  see  Erin,  or  her  sons  and  daughters  again. 
From  the  high  prow  I  look  over  the  ocean  ;  great  tears  are  in  my  gray  eyes,  as  I  turn 

to  Erin  ;  where  the  song  of  the  birds  is  so  sweet ;  where  the  monks  sing  like 

the  birds  ;  where  the  young  are  so  gentle,  and  the  old  so  wise  ;  where  the  men 

are  so  noble  to  look  at,  and  the  women  so  fair  to  wed." 

"  Young  traveller,"  he  says,  to  one  of  his  disciples,  a  noble 
youth,  returning  to  Ireland  — 

"  Young  traveller,  take  my  heart  with  thee,  and  my  blessing ;  carry  them  to  Cor*. 

ghaill  of  eternal  light. 
Carry  my  heart  to  Ireland — seven  times  may  she  be  blessed — my  body  to  Albin. 
Carry  my  blessing  across  the  sea  ;  carry  it  to  the  Irish.     My  heart  is  broken  in  my 

bosom. 
If  death  should  come  upon  me  suddenly,  it  will  be  because  of  my  great  »ve  of  th« 

GaeL" 


The  Exiles  of  Erin.  47$ 

One  consolation  vouchsafed  to  him  was,  that  he  had  two 
visions  from  God.  He  foretold  that,  many  hundred  years  after 
his  death,  his  body  should  be  carried  back  to  Ireland,  to  rest 
forever  in  the  soil  that  he  loved.  This  prophecy  he  himself 
announced  in  these  words  :  "  They  shall  bury  me  first  at  Iona  ; 
but  by  the  will  of  the  living  God  it  is  in  Down  that  I  shall  rest 
in  my  grave,  with  Patrick  and  Bridget  the  immaculate — three 
bodies  in  one  grave."  And  so,  in  the  tenth  century,  when  the 
Danes  swept  over  Iona,  the  monks  took  St.  Columbkille's  ven- 
erated body,  and  brought  it  to  Ireland,  and  laid  it  in  the  Cathe- 
dral in  Downpatrick,  with  Patrick  and  Bridget ;  and  there,  as 
the  old  poem  tells  us- 

"  Three  saints  one  grave  do  fill, 
Patrick,  and  Bridget,  and  Columbkillp  " 

The  love  he  had  for  Ireland  was  a  spirit  common  to  all  Irish 
saints.  Whilst  they  were  crowned  with  the  highest  dignities  of 
the  Church  in  foreign  lands,  still,  as  we  have  the  record  in  the 
history  of  St.  Aidan,  the  first  Archbishop  of  Northumbria,  the 
founder  of  the  famous  Lindisfarne,  whenever  they  wished  to 
enjoy  themselves  a  little,  they  came  together  and  celebrated  in 
the  Irish  language,  with  sweetest  verse,  to  the  sound  of  the 
timbrel  and  the  harp,  the  praises  of  their  native  land. 

Nor  less  was  the  love  which  the  brave  exiles  of  1691  bore  to 
Ireland.  We  see  that,  when  the  cry  of  battle  came  forth  ;  when, 
with  the  shock  of  arms,  they  met  upon  the  battle-field,  never 
was  the  stout  heart  of  the  Saxon  enemy  smitten  with  fear  within 
him,  until  he  heard,  ringing  forth  in  the  Irish  tongue,  "  Re- 
member Limerick,  and  dash  down  the  Sassenagh  !  "  And  well 
they  loved  their  native  land — these  noble  chieftains  and  brave 
soldiers  of  Ireland.  Their  love  is  commemorated  in  the  poet's 
verse : 

"  The  mess-tent  is  full,  and  the  glasses  are  set, 
And  the  gallant  Count  Thomond  is  president  yet ; 
The  vet'ran  arose,  like  an  uplifted  lance, 
Crying — '  Comrades,  a  health  to  he  Monarch  of  France  ! ' 
With  bumpers  and  cheers  they  have  done  as  he  bade, 
For  King  Louis  is  loved  by  The  Irish  Brigade. 

"  '  A  health  to  King  James,'  and  they  bent  as  they  quaffed ; 
1  Here's  to  George  the  Elector'  and  fiercely  they  laughed  \ 
'  Good  luck  to  the  girls  we  wooed  long  ago, 
Where  Shannon,  and  Barrow,  and  Blackwater  flow  :' 


47&  The  Exiles  of  Erin. 

'  God  prosper  Old  Ireland,' — you'd  think  them  afraid. 
So  pale  grew  (he  chiefs  of  The  Irish  Brigade. 

"    But,  surely,  that  light  cannot  come  from  our  lamp  ? 

And  that  noise — are  they  all  getting  drunk  in  the  camp  7 
1  Hurrah  !  boys,  the  morning  of  battle  is  come, 
And  the  geturale's  beating  on  many  a  drum.' 
So  they  rush  from  the  revel  to  join  the  parade  ; 
For  the  van  is  the  right  of  The  Irish  Brigade. 

"  They  fought  as  they  revelled,  fast,  fiery,  and  true, 
And,  though  victors,  they  left  on  the  field  not  a  few  ; 
And  they,  who  survived,  fought  and  drank  as  of  yore, 
But  the  land  of  their  heart's  hope  they  never  saw  more  ; 
For  in  far  foreign  fields,  from  Dunkirk  to  Belgrade, 
Lie  the  soldiers  and  chiefs  of  The  Irish  Brigade." 

Nor  is  the  Irishman  of  to-day — whether  a  voluntary  01  an 
involuntary  exile  from  the  dear  green  island  of  the  ocean — 
ashamed  of  the  love  of  the  warrior  for  Ireland.  It  is  not,  per- 
haps, the  beauties  of  the  land  that  we  remember  ;  it  is  not,  per- 
haps, the  green  hill-sides,  crowned  with  the  Irish  oak,  made  so 
beautiful  in  their  clothing  of  the  Irish  fern,  that  rise  before  our 
eyes,  and  excite  the  tenderest  emotions  of  our  souls;  it  was  not 
the  beauties  of  Avoca  that  captivated  the  poet  when  he  sang — 

"  Yet  it  was  not  that  Nature  had  shed  o'er  the  scene 
Her  purest  of  crystal,  and  brightest  of  green  ; 
'Twas  not  the  soft  magic  of  streamlet  or  rill — 
Oh,  no  ! — it  was  something  more  exquisite  still. 

"  'Twas  that  friends,  the  beloved  of  my  bosom  were  near, 
Who  made  ev'ry  dear  scene  of  enchantment  more  dear  j 
And  who  felt  how  the  best  charms  of  nature  improve, 
When  we  see  them  reflected  from  looks  that  we  love." 

So,  perhaps,  it  is  not  the  material  beauty  of  Ireland — the 
green  hill-side,  or  the  pastoral  beauty  of  glade  or  of  valley ; — 
it  is  not,  perhaps,  the  running  brook,  the  mill-pond,  the  green 
field,  the  mossgrown  old  abbey,  around  which  we  played  in  our 
youth — not  so  much  these  that  command  our  love  ;  but  it  is  the 
holy,  tender  associations  of  all  that  we  first  learned  to  love, 
that  we  first  learned  to  venerate ;  the  pure-minded,  holy,  gentle, 
loving  mother,  the  wise,  strong,  and  considerate  father;  the 
tender  friend  upon  whom  we  leaned,  and  whose  friendship  wag 
to  us  the  earliest  joy  of  our  life:  the  venerable  priest,  whose 


The  Exiles  of  Erin.  477 

smile  we  sought  as  we  bowed  our  youthful  heads  for  his  bless- 
ing. These,  and  such  as  these,  are  the  motives  of  our  love  for 
Ireland.  And  that  love  is  as  keen,  as  strong,  in  the  heart  of  the 
Irishman,  far  away  from  his  native  land  to-day,  as  it  was  in  the 
heart  of  St.  Columbkille  ;  as  it  was  in  the  valor  of  the  Irish  Bri- 
gade  man  as  he  rose  to  toast  his  heroic  motherland.  Well  is 
the  emigrant  of  to-day,  the  Irish  Exile,  described  and  depicted 
in  the  beautiful  verses  which  recall  his  leaving  his  native  land  : 

"  Adieu  ! — the  snowy  sail 
Swells  her  bosom  to  the  gale, 
And  our  barque  from  Innisfail 

Bounds  away. 
While  we  gaze  upon  thy  shore, 
That  we  never  shall  see  more, 
And  the  blinding  tears  flow  o'er, 
We  pray : 

"  Mavoumeen  !  be  thou  long 
In  peace  the  queen  of  song — 
In  battle  proud  and  strong 

As  the  sea ! 
Be  saints  thine  offspring  still — 
True  heroes  guard  each  hill 
And  harps  by  ev'ry  rill 

Sound  free ! 

"Tho'  round  her  Indian  bowers, 
The  hand  of  nature  showers 
The  brightest-blooming  flowers 

Of  our  sphere } 
Yet,  not  the  richest  rose 
In  an  alien  clime  that  blows, 
Like  the  brier  at  home  that  grows. 
Is  dear. 


When  I  slumber  in  the  gloom 
Of  a  nameless  foreign  tomb, 
By  a  distant  ocean's  boom, 

Innisfail ! 
Around  thy  em'rald  shore, 
May  the  clasping  sea  adore. 
And  each  wave  in  thunder  ro«r, 

'  All  hail ! 

"And  when  the  final  sigh, 
Shall  bear  my  soul  on  high, 
And  on  chainless  wing  I  fly 

Thro'  the  bin 


478  The  Exiles  of  Ertn. 

Earth's  latest  thought  shall  be, 
As  I  soar  above  the  sea — 
'Green  Erin,  dear,  to  thee — 
Adieu ! ' " 

Yes :  if  there  be  one  passion  that  has  outlived  eveiy  other  in 
the  heart  of  the  true  Irishman,  it  is  the  inborn  love  for  Ireland, 
for  Ireland's  greatness,  and  for  Ireland's  glory.  Our  fathers 
loved  it,  and  knew  how  to  prize  it,  to  hold  it — the  glory  of  the 
faith  that  has  never  been  tarnished ;  the  glory  of  the  national 
honor  that  has  never  bowed  down  to  acknowledge  itself  a  slave. 
And,  my  friends,  the  burden  and  the  responsibility  of  that  glory 
is  yours  and  mine  to-night.  The  glory  of  Ireland's  priesthood  ; 
the  glory  of  St.  Columba ;  the  glories  of  Iona  and  of  Lindis- 
farne  weigh  upon  me  with  a  tremendous  responsibility,  to  be  of 
all  other  men  what  the  Irish  priest  and  monk  must  be,  because 
of  that  glorious  history  ;  the  glory  of  the  battle  that  has  been 
so  long  fighting  and  is  not  yet  closed  ;  the  glory  of  that  faith 
that  has  been  so  long  and  so  well  defended  and  guarded ;  the 
glory  of  that  national  virtue  that  has  made  Ireland's  men  the 
bravest  and  Ireland's  women  the  purest  in  the  word — that  glory 
is  your  inheritance  and  your  responsibility  this  night.  I  and 
you,  men,  feel  as  Irishmen,  and  as  Catholics,  that  you  and  I  to- 
night are  bound  to  show  the  world  what  Irishmen  and  Catholics 
have  been  in  the  ages  before  us,  and  what  they  intend  to  be  in 
the  ages  to  come — a  nation  and  a  Church  that  has  never  allowed 
a  stain  to  be  fixed  upon  the  national  banner  nor  upon  the  na- 
tional altar — a  nation  and  a  Church  who,  in  spite  of  its  hard  fate 
and  its  misfortunes,  can  still  look  the  world  in  the  face  ;  for  on 
Ireland's  virgin  brow  no  stain  of  dishonor  or  of  perfidy  has  ever 
been  placed.  In  sobriety,  in  industry,  in  manly  self-respect,  in 
honest  pride  of  everything  that  an  honest  man  ought  be  proud 
of — in  all  these,  and  in  respect  for  the  laws  of  this  mighty  coun- 
try lie  the  secret  of  your  honor  and  of  your  national  power  and 
purity.  Mark  my  words  !  Let  Ireland  in  America  be  faithful, 
be  Catholic,  be  practical,  be  temperate,  be  industrious  be  obe- 
dient to  the  laws  ;  and  the  day  will  dawn,  with  the  blessing  of 
God,  yet  upon  you  and  me,  so  that  when  returning  to  visit  for  a 
time  the  shores  from  which  we  came,  we  shall  land  upon  the 
shores  of  a  free  and  glorious  and  unfettered  nation. 


THE  CONFESSIONAL:  ITS  EFFECT 
ON  SOCIETY. 


[Lecture  delivered  at  St.  Joseph's  Church,  Brooklyn,  on  Sunday,  May  5th,  1872.] 

EARLY  BELOVED  BRETHREN  :  Amongst  the 
things  that  were  prophesied  concerning  our  Lord  and 
Saviour,  there  was  this  said  of  Him  :  That  He  would  be 
an  object  of  wonder  to  men  :  "  Vocabitur  admirabilisy 
"  He  shall  be  called,"  says  the  prophet,  "  the  Wonderful."  He 
came  ;  and,  in  signs,  and  miracles,  and  many  glorious  deeds,  He 
excited  the  wonder  of  mankind  ;  but  never  so  much  as  when 
they  heard  from  His  lips  such  words  as  these:  "Thy  sins  are 
forgiven  thee," — spoken  to  the  sinner.  They  were  astonished 
at  His  wisdom;  they  were  astonished  at  His  miracles;  but  it 
was  only  when  He  said  to  the  paralytic  man :  "  Thy  sins  are 
forgiven  thee,"  and  to  the  Magdalene,  "  Arise,  go  in  peace ;  all 
is  forgiven  thee," — it  was  only  then  that  the  Pharisees  absolutely 
refused  to  believe.  Their  wonder  carried  them  even  into  in- 
credulity ;  and  they  said  among  themselves,  and  to  each  other : 
"  How  can  this  be  ?  " 

As  it  was  with  our  Divine  Lord,  so  it  is  with  the  action  of 
His  Holy  Church  with  regard  to  sinners.  The  world  beholds 
her  as  Christ,  our  Lord,  established  her — in  all  her  spiritual 
loveliness  and  beauty — in  majesty,  in  unity,  in  truthfulness,  and 
<?  in  power.  Men  are  obliged  to  acknowledge  all  the  beautiful 
things  that  dwell  in  the  Church.  Some  reluctantly,  others  with 
apparent  joy,  bear  witness  to  the  fair  order  of  mercy  and 
charity  in  her.  And  when  they  see  her  best  and  her  holiest 
sitting  down  in  the  hospitals  and  in  orphanages,  attending 
the  poor,  or  following  the  soldier  to  the  battle-field,  they  fill  the 
world  with  praise  of  this  wonderful  mercy  which  is  so  organized 
in  the  Catholic  Church.     When  they  see  eight  hundred  of  her 


480  The  Confessional :  Its 

bishops,  meeting  in  council,  and  all  hearing  the  word  of 
one  man,  and  before  that  one  bowing  down  as  before  the 
voice  of  God — they  bear  willing  testimony  to  the  wonderful 
unity  of  faith  which  is  in  the  Church.  When  they  contemplate 
her  priesthood,  consecrated  to  God,  and  devoted  to  the  people, 
they  give  loud  and  cheerful  testimony  to  the  devotedness  which 
exists  in  the  Catholic  Church.  But  there  is  one  thing — just 
like  the  Pharisees  with  our  Lord — there  is  one  thing  that  they 
will  not  admit ;  and  they  are,  perpetually,  in  regard  to  that  one 
thing,  repeating  the  old  word  of  the  Pharisees  :  "  Who  is  this 
that  says  he  can  remit  sin  ?"  and  "  How  can  this  be?  "  "  Who 
is  this  man  that  even  forgives,  or  pretends  to  forgive,  sin  ?" 

And  so,  over  and  over  again,  we  meet  those  who  say :  "  We 
admire  the  strength  of  your  faith  ;  we  admire  the  piety  of  your 
worship  ;  we  admire  the  wonderful  energy  of  your  organization  ; 
we  admire  your  ancient  traditions  ;  but  don't  speak  to  us  of 
confession  !  "  Whenever  the  confessional  is  abused,  they  listen 
to  the  abuse  of  it  with  greedy  ears.  No  man  is  more  popular 
than  the  man  who  pretends  to  "unmask  confession!"  He  is 
"  honest !"  he  is  "sincere!"  he  is  "acting  up  to  his  convic- 
tions !  "  There  must  be  something  fearful,  something  terrible, 
in  that  assumption  of  power  by  which  the  Church  pretends  to 
deal  with  sinners,  and  to  cleanse  them  from  their  sin.  Yet,  my 
friends,-  reflect;  certain  it  is,  that  the  mission  for  which  the 
Eternal  Son  of  God  came  down  from  heaven  to  earth  was  to 
take  away  sin  ;  "  that  where  sin  abounded  grace  might  abound 
still  more."  Certain  it  is,  that  it  was  for  sinners  He  came,  and 
for  their  sins  He  died.  Now,  the  action  of  Christ  upon  sinners 
and  upon  sin,  was  either  to  the  total  and  entire  destruction  of 
sin,  or  only  to  the  remedying  of  sin.  Which  of  these  was  it  ? 
Did  His  sufferings  and  His  death  totally  and  entirely  destroy 
sin?  He  might  have  done  it.  Did  He  put  an  end  to  sin?  Alas, 
no !  It  was  not  the  design  of  His  wisdom.  With  sorrowing 
voice,  He,  Himself,  declared  that,  when  He  had  died  and  gone 
to  the  place  of  His  glory,  sin  would  still  remain.  "  It  is  neces- 
sary," He  said,  "  that  scandal  should  be."  If,  then,  this  death 
and  suffering  of  our  Lord,  and  the  mission  of  Christ,  our  Lord, 
was  not  to  the  total  destruction  of  sin,  and  the  mechanical  and 
entire  expulsion  of  all  evil  from  this  world,  nothing  remains 
but  to  say  that   He  came  to  remedy  sin  ;   to   deal   with   sin 


Effect  on   Society.  4S1 

wherever  he  found  it  ;  to  deal  with  it  in  each  successive 
generation.  And  this  is  the  truth ;  for  Christ,  our  Lord, 
knowing  and  foreknowing  that  sin  should  be,  provided  a  last- 
ing remedy  for  the  lasting  evil.  And,  therefore,  calling  to  Him 
His  Apostles,  He  said  :  "  I  am  come,  that  where  sin  abounded 
grace  might  abound  still  more."  Therefore  did  Christ  suffer 
that  the  body  of  sin  might  be  broken  and  destroyed  in  each 
successive  generation.  "  The  Father  sent  Me,"  He  says,  "  that 
where  sin  abounded  grace  might  abound  still  more."  "  Again,  I 
say  unto  you,  that  even  as  the  Father  sent  Me.  so  do  I  send  you." 
Then,  breathing  upon  His  Apostles,  He  said  :  "  Receive  ye  the 
Holy  Ghost ;  whose  sins  ye  shall  forgive  they  are  forgiven 
them  :  and  whose  sins  ye  shall  retain  they  are  retained."  That 
moment — at  the  breathing  of  the  Son  of  God — the  power  that 
was  in  Him  was  communicated  to  His  Apostles,  that,  in  His 
power,  and  in  His  strength,  and  in  His  grace,  and  in  His  action, 
they  might  absolve  from  sin,  and  cleanse  the  soul  of  sin. 

Behold,  then,  how  Christ,  our  Lord,  clearly  and  emphatically 
embodied  His  action  in  the  Church,  and  gave  to  the  Church  to 
do  unto  the  end  of  time  what  He  came  to  do  upon  the  earth, 
viz.,  to  deal  with  sin  and  with  sinners  ;  and  to  say  to  every  weep- 
ing and  contrite  one,  no  matter  how  great  the  burden  of  his  sin  - 
"  Arise  ;  depart  in  peace  ;  thy  sin  is  forgiven  thee  !  "  Even 
those  who  deny  to  the  Church  the  power  of  forgiving  sin,  admit 
that  the  Apostles  did  it.  They  cannot  deny  that  the  Apostles 
had  it,  without  denying  the  very  words  of  Christ :  "  Whose  sins 
ye  shall  forgive  they  are  forgiven."  And  yet,  while  they  admit 
that  the  Apostles  had  it,  strange  to  say,  they  imagine  that  the 
mysterious  power  died  with  the  Apostles.  Now,  let  us  take  up 
this  theory.  Let  us  reflect  for  a  moment  upon  this  foolish 
imagination  that  the  power  to  forgive  sin  died  with  the  Apostles. 
The  action  of  Christ,  I  repeat  again — the  mission  of  Christ — was 
to  deal  with  sin  and  with  sinners.  He  gave  that  power,  un- 
doubtedly, to  his  Apostles  ;  and  I  assert  that  if  that  power 
died  with  John,  the  last  of  the  twelve,  the  action  and  the  mis- 
sion of  Christ  came  to  an  end.  It  was  absolutely  necessary  to 
acknowledge  cither  that  the  power  was  transmitted  from  the 
Apostles  to  their  successors  in  the  priesthood,  as  they  themselves 
had  received  it  from  Christ,  or  to  confess  that  the  action  of  the 
Son  of  God.  our  Redeemer,  not  being  utterly  destructive  of  sin 

21 


482  The  Confessional:  Its 

but  only  remedial — that  that  action  must  have  ceased  entirely 
when  the  last  of  the  Apostles  died,  and  that  there  was  an  end 
of  all  hope  of  pardon  for  sinners.  Can  you  imagine  this  ?  Did 
He  come  only  to  redeem  the  generation  that  had  crucified 
Him  ?  Did  He  come  only  to  redeem  and  to  provide  a  remedy 
for  the  few  generations  that  lasted  as  long  as  one  of  the  Apos- 
tles was  upon  the  earth  ?  Oh,  no  !  But  He  declared  that  as 
the  Redeemer  from  everlasting  was  His  name  at  the  beginning, 
so,  until  the  end,  He  should  be  with  His  Church,  in  the  fullness 
of  His  power — in  the  greatness  of  the  outpouring  of  His  grace. 
"  I  am  with  you,"  He  says,  "  all  days,  even  to  the  consummation 
of  the  world.  "  And  therefore,  He  is  Jesus  Christ,  the  anointed 
Saviour !  —  the  same  Saviour  to-day  as  eighteen  hundred 
years  ago,  through  his  Church  ; — yesterday,  to-day,  and  the 
same  for  ever.  That  the  Apostles  had  the  power  of  transmit- 
ting all  that  they  received  from  Christ  to  their  successors,  is 
evident  from  one  simple  fact  that  is  not  sufficiently  meditated 
upon  by  those  who  deny  it.  Christ,  our  Lord,  spoke  to  the 
original  twelve.  Judas  was  amongst  them  when  He  called 
them  to  be  Apostles.  Judas  prevaricated  ;  betrayed  his  Master ; 
fell  from,  his  place  of  glory,  even  as  Lucifer  fell  from  his  high 
throne  in  Heaven  ;  and  then  there  were  only  eleven  left.  What 
did  they  do  ?  They  chose  one  man  from  out  the  seventy-two 
disciples — His  name  was  Matthias — good  and  holy  ; — and  they 
took  this  man — having  laid  their  hands  upon  him — into  the 
number  of  the  Twelve  Apostles,  and  he  became  even  as  they 
were.  Everything  that  they  could  do  he  received  the  power  to 
do.  From  whom  ?  From  Christ  ?  Christ  was  already  ascended 
into  Heaven.  From  whom,  then  ?  From  the  Apostles  them- 
selves. Think  you,  my  brethren,  that,  if  they  had  not  the 
power  of  transmitting  all  that  they  had  received  from  Christ, 
they  would  have  chosen  a  man  and  made  him  an  Apostle  ?  But 
we  have  this  upon  the  authority  of  Scripture.  What,  there- 
fore, they  were  able  to  do  for  Matthias,  they  were  able  to 
do  for  all  their  successors  in  the  priesthood  and  in  the  episco 
pate.  And  so  the  glorious  tradition  was  handed  down  the 
stream  ;  for  all  that  began  with  Jesus  Christ — that  flowed  from 
Him  through  Peter,  James,  John,  and  the  others — flows  to-day 
in  the  sacred  channels  of  the  priesthood.  And  that  stream  is  a 
two-fold    stream,   viz.,  pure  undiluted  doctrine,  as  true  as  tho 


Effect  on   Society.  483 

very  Word  of  God,  because  it  is  the  Word  of  God — never  to  be 
polluted  by  the  least  error  ;  and,  side  by  side  with  that  stream 
of  doctrine,  the  waters  of  Divine  grace  ;  the  sacramental 
power  to  heal  by  the  touch  of  sanctity  ;  by  the  application  of 
the  grace  of  Jesus  Christ  in  the  sacraments.  These  remained 
principally,  as  far  as  regards  sinners,  in  the  sacrament  of  bap- 
tism and  in  the  sacrament  of  penance. 

It  is  clear,  then,  dearly  beloved,  that  this  was  necessary  in 
order  that  the  mission  and  action  of  the  Son  of  God,  as  Re- 
deemer of  the  world — falling  upon  sinners,  touching  them,  and 
cleansing  them — should  continue  in  the  Church.  #  This  was 
prophesied  clearly  by  him  who  said  :  "  On  that  day  there  shall 
be  a  fountain  open  unto  the  House  of  David  and  unto  the 
dwellers  in  Jerusalem  ;  unto  the  cleansing  the  sinner  and  the 
unclean."  That  sacramental  fountain  springs  forth  from  the 
Church  in  the  sacrament  of  penance. 

Now,  before  we  pass  to  consider  the  action  of  this  sacrament 
upon  society,  consider  it,  first,  viewed  by  the  Almighty  God,  and 
in  the  wonderful  manifestation  of  the  heart  and  the  hand  of 
Jesus  Christ.  When  the  Son  of  God  came  down  from  heaven 
to  redeem  the  world,  He  came  with  three  glorious  attributes, 
which  He  was  bound  to  preserve,  even  in  the  action  of  His 
redemption,  because  He  was  God.  These  were  mercy,  power, 
and  justice.  The  justice  of  the  Eternal  Father  demanded  that 
His  own  divine  Son,  who,  alone,  could  pay  man's  debt,  should 
come  down  from  heaven  and  pay  that  debt  in  His  blood.  The 
justice  of  the  Son  of  God,  in  relation  to  His  heavenly  Father, 
made  Him  come  down  from  heaven  and  pay,  in  the  shedding 
of  that  blood,  the  all-sufficient  price  for  all  the  souls  of  man- 
kind. The  justice  of  the  Eternal  Father  demanded  that,  as  He 
had  been  outraged  in  every  attribute  of  His  power  and  dignity 
by  the  man,  Adam,  so,  by  a  man — a  true  man — that  honor,  and 
glory,  and  dignity  should  be  restored  to  Him  ;  and  the  justice 
of  the  Eternal  Word  brought  that  uncreated  God  from  heaven, 
that,  becoming  true  man — the  Son  of  Man — He  might  be  able 
to  pay,  in  that  sacred  humanity,  and  by  the  shedding  of  that 
blood,  for  the  souls  of  mankind.  Thus  we  see  how  the  justice 
of  God  came  forth  for  the  world's  redemption.  Secondly,  the 
mercy  of  God  is  seen  ;  for,  O  dearly  beloved  brethren,  when 
we  had  abandoned  the  Almighty  God,  ungrateful   for  all  th it 


484  The  Confessional :  Its 

He  had  conferred  upon  us,  He  might  have  left  us  a  fallen  and  a 
God-forsaken  race  ;  He  might  have  turned  away  from  the  first 
sinner  upon  earth  as  He  turned  away  from  the  first  sinner  in 
heaven,  so  as  never  to  look  with  mercy  upon  his  face  again. 
But  no  ;  God  looked  upon  the  fallen  race  with  eyes  of  pity, 
with  eyes  of  infinite  compassion  and  of  mercy ;  and,  on  the  first 
day  of  His  anger,  He  remembered  this  pity  and  this  mercy  ;  for, 
after  having  cursed  Adam  for  his  sin,  and  having  laid  His  curse 
upon  the  earth  in  the  work  of  Adam,  then  did  He  unfold  the 
plan  of  his  redemption  ;  and  to  the  serpent  He  said :  There- 
fore, the  woman,  and  the  woman's  seed  shall  crush  thy  head. 
In  this  we  behold  the  power  of  God.  For,  says  St.  Augustine, 
the  power  of  God  is  measured  in  our  regard  by  the  greatest  of 
His  works.  Now,  the  greatest  work  of  God  is  the  redemption 
of  mankind  ;  and  the  greatest  work  it  ever  entered  into  the 
mind  of  God  to  conceive,  or  into  the  hand  of  God  to  execute, 
was,  God  made  man  in  our  Saviour,  Christ.  This  was  the  great- 
est of  all  God's  works.  Compared  with  this  creature — the  Son 
of  Mary  ;  for  in  His  humanity  He  was  a  creature — a  man  ;  com- 
pared with  Him  in  the  ineffable  union  of  God  and  man,  of  two 
natures  in  one  person  ;  everything  else  that  God  made,  every 
other  power  that  He  ever  showed  or  exercised,  vanishes  as  if  it 
was  nothing ;  and  Christ,  our  Lord,  God  and  man,  looms  forth, 
filling  heaven  and  earth,  as  the  greatest  of  all  God's  works.  So, 
in  like  manner,  in  the  dealings  of  Christ  our  Lord  with  sinners, 
He  was  careful  to  preserve  the  same  three  attributes  of  His 
divinity.  His  power  He  showed  forth  in  the  remission  of  their 
sins  ;  His  mercy  He  showed  forth  in  turning  to  them  and  spurn- 
ing them  not  from  Him  ;  His  justice  He  showed  forth,  for  never 
did  He  absolve  a  sinner  from  his  sin  without  cautioning  that 
sinner,  lest  he  might  return  to  that  sin  again,  and  something 
far  more  terrible  should  fall  upon  him. 

And  now,  when  we  pass  from  the  action  of  Christ  to  His 
Church,  what  do  we  find  ?  We  find,  dearly  beloved  brethren, 
in  all  the  works  of  God  in  His  Church,  in  all  her  sacraments,  a 
union  of  the  same  attributes.  But  nowhere,  in  no  sacrament, 
in  no  action  of  God,  do  we  find  power  and  mercy  so  magnifi- 
cently shown  forth,  and  so  wonderfully  blended  into  one  act,  as 
in  the  act  by  which  the  sinner  is  saved,  and  absolved  from  his 
sin.     First  of  all,  consider  the  power  of  God.     Almighty  God 


Effect  on    Society.  485 

showed  His  omnipotence,  first  of  all,  in  the  creation.  He  spoke 
over  the  darkness  and  the  void  of  space,  and  He  said,  "  Let 
there  be  light ;"  and  light  was  made  in  an  instant.  The  sun 
shone  forth  in  the  heavens,  and  the  moon  caught  up  her  re- 
flected glory  from  him.  The  stars  sprang  forth  like  clustering 
gems  in  the  firmament  newly  created,  and  the  whole  world  was 
flooded  with  the  blessed  light  which  sprang  into  existence  at 
the  word  of  God.  Then  followed  the  same  imperative,  omnipo- 
tent command — the  same  fiat ;  and  at  the  sound  of  the  ex- 
pression of  God's  will,  life  came  out  of  death,  as  light  out  of 
darkness ;  beauty  out  of  chaos  ;  order  out  of  disorder  ;  and  all 
the  series  of  worlds  took  up  their  position  in  their  respective 
places  in  creation,  and  began  that  hymn  of  harmony  and  praise 
which  has  resounded  before  Him  for  six  thousand  years.  How 
great,  how  wonderful  is  the  word  that  God  spoke,  and  by  which 
He  could  effect  such  great  things  !  Yet  St.  Augustine  tells  us 
that  the  words  by  which  the  priest  says  to  the  sinner,  "  I  ab- 
solve thee  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost," 
and  which,  at  their  sound,  cleanse  that  sinner's  soul  from  all  his 
sins ;  bring  him  forth  from  out  the  grave  ;  bring  him  forth  from 
out  the  darkness  of  his  sin,  into  the  light  of  God's  grace;  from 
defilement  into  purity;  from  death  into  life  ;  that  that  word  is 
simply,  infinitely  more  powerful  than  the  word— the  fiat — by 
which  Almighty  God  created  the  world.  Infinitely  more  power- 
ful ;  and  why?  Because,  when  God,  in  the  beginning  of  crea- 
tion, stood,  as  it  were,  upon  the  threshold  of  heaven,  and  from 
heaven's  brightness  sent  forth  the  word,  there  was  nothing  in 
that  void  that  lay  before  God,  nothing  in  that  chaotic  space 
over  which  His  word  was  sped,  that  could  resist  the  action  of 
His  word.  There  was  nothing  there.  He  made  all  things  out 
of  nothing ;  but  the  original  nothingness,  therefore,  could  not 
resist  the  action  of  God.  Nor  is  there  in  heaven,  nor  upon  the 
earth,  nor  in  hell,  anything  that  can  resist  the  action  of  God, 
except  one  thing  ;  and  that  one  thing  is  the  obstinate  will,  and 
the  perverse  heart  of  the  sinner.  The  will  of  man  alonecan  say 
to  the  Almighty  God,  "Omnipotence,  I  defy  thee."  And  why? 
It  is  not  that  God  could  not,  if  He  so  willed  it,  annihilate  that 
will ;  but  He  does  not  will  it.  It  is  because  the  Almighty  God, 
by  an  eternal  law,  respects  that  freedom  of  man's  will,  so  that 
iftha*  will  resist  Him  freely,  Omnipotence  itself  is  powerless 


486  The   Confessional :   Its 

before  that  will.  Such  being  the  decree  of  the  law  of  the  will 
of  God,  the  heart  of  man  alone,  th«  will  of  man  alone,  can  offet 
such  an  obstacle  to  the  Almighty  God's  action.  Even  in  His 
omnipotent  power,  God  must  yield,  because  He  cannot  gain  a 
victory  without  destroying  that  freedom  which  He  has  sworn, 
by  an  eternal  law,  to  respect. 

Now,  when  a  man  commits  sin,  falls  from  one  sin  into  an- 
other, when  he  becomes  a  drunkard,  or  an  impure  man,  or  a 
blasphemer,  or,  in  any  other  way,  hands  over  his  soul  to  the 
devil,  then  his  will  is  opposed  to  God — his  heart  turned  against 
God.  And  how  can  the  Almighty  God  convert  that  man  whose 
will  is  opposed  to  Him,  and  the  freedom  of  whose  will  He  is 
bound  to  respect  ?  Here  comes  in  the  wonderful  action  of  God's 
wisdom  united  to  His  omnipotence.  He  will  not  say  to  that 
sinner,  "  You  must  be  converted  ;"  He  will  not  say  it,  because, 
if  He  said  it,  that  conversion  would  not  be  free,  would  not  be 
worthy  of  man,  nor  could  it  be  deserving  of  the  favor  and  ac- 
ceptance of  Almighty  God.  The  freedom  that  is  in  God 
essentially  He  has  reflected  on  man,  and  he  that  is  saved  must 
be  saved  by  a  free  co-operation  with  God's  grace ;  and  he  that 
is  damned,  goes  down  to  hell  of  his  own  free-will.  Therefore, 
the  Lord  says,  "  Thy  perdition  is  from  thyself,  O  Israel!"  Here 
is  the  difficulty,  then,  that  the  mind  of  God  alone,  the  wisdom 
of  God  alone,  united  to  His  omnipotence,  can  solve.  Here  is 
a  man  whose  will  is  opposed  to  God.  As  long  as  that  will  is 
opposed  to  God,  Almighty  God  can  never  have  mercy  on  that 
man.  And  yet  God  cannot,  in  virtue  of  His  own  eternal  laws, 
force  that  will  to  relinquish  its  opposition  to  Him.  Therefore, 
by  His  graces,  by  H<s  wonderful  attractive  powers,  He  awakens 
in  that  sinner's  soul  the  first  feelings  of  love.  He  puts  before 
the  sinner's  eyes,  first,  the  hideous,  yet  true,  lineaments  of  sin. 
He  excites  in  the  sinner's  heart  the  first  feelings  of  remorse 
and  of  loneliness  at  being  separated  from  God.  He  puts  into 
the  sinner's  cup  of  pleasure  the  little  drop  that  embitters  it 
somewhat  to  his  own  spiritual  taste ;  and  He  reminds  him  how 
sweet  it  was  to  have  lovea  the  Lord  his  God.  He  thunders  in 
that  sinner's  ears  the  announcement  of  His  judgments;  He 
shakes  that  sinner's  soul  with  the  first  tremblings  of  that  holy 
fear  which  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom.  With  a  merciful  hand 
He  opens  the  vision  of  hell,  and  shows  to  that  sinner's  startled 


Effect  on  Society.  487 

glance  the  lowest  abode  of  the  everlasting  dwelling-place  of  the 
enemies  of  God.  And  thus,  by  a  thousand  powerful  graces, 
sweetly,  yet  strongly,  does  He  bring  that  sinner's  will  around, 
until,  at  length,  the  impediment  is  removed,  and  the  man  comes 
freely,  not  forced,  but  drawn  and  attracted — not  coerced  at  all, 
yet  coming  in  spite  of  himself — in  spite  of  himself,  yet  freely; 
and  (mystery  of  the  omnipotence  of  divine  grace,  and  of  the 
wonderful  respect  of  God's  omnipotence  for  the  freedom  of 
man),  he  comes  and  surrenders  himself  to  God.  Then,  and  only 
then,  can  the  Almighty  God  absolve  him  from  his  sin.'  Consider 
how  great  is  the  obstacle  that  has  to  be  removed  from  that  sin- 
ner's soul  before  the  omnipotent  God  can  free  him  from  his  sin  ! 
There  is  there  a  will  opposed  to  God.  If  all  the  angels  in 
heaven,  if  all  the  powers  in  heaven  and  upon  earth  strained 
themselves  to  change  that  will,  their  action  would  be  simply  im- 
potence before  it ;  so  tremendous  is  the  law  that  preserves  the 
perfect  freedom  of  man's  will  for  good  or  for  evil. 

We  can  again  reflect  upon  the  power  of  God,  as  shown  in  His 
punishment  of  sin  ;  for  this  is  the  second  great  feature  of  His 
omnipotence,  when  it  comes  out  in  all  the  rigors  of  His  justice. 
Oh,  how  terrible  is  this  consideration,  that,  whilst  we  are  here, 
peacefully  assembled  around  this  holy  altar,  there  is,  somewhere 
or  other  in  the  creation  of  God,  the  vast,  the  terrible,  prison  of 
hell,  with  its  millions  on  millions  of  unhappy  inmates,  and  its 
flames,  roaring,  sweeping,  devouring,  and  yet  not  consuming ; 
that,  somewhere  or  other,  the  air  is  filled  with  the  cry — the 
spiritual  cry — of  the  imprisoned  souls  and  reprobate  angels  of 
God,  dashing  in  all  their  wild  and  impotent  rage  against  those 
bars  that  shall  never  permit  them  to  go  forth  ;  that  there  is  en- 
kindled, by  the  breath  of  an  angry  God,  a  fire  that  shall  never 
be  extinguished  ;  and  there,  for  all  eternity,  the  hand  of  God, 
in  all  its  omnipotence,  will  fall  with  all  the  weight  of  its  unsatis- 
fied vengeance  of  fire  !  Terrible,  terrible  it  is  to  think  upon  the 
despair  that,  looking  forward  to  an  endless  eternity,  sees  no  ray 
of  hope,  no  moment  of  mitigation  of  the  terrible  punishments  of 
the  soul  and  of  the  body  there !  Yet,  if  you  reflect  upon  it. 
what  is  more  natural  than  that  the  sinner,  dying  in  his  sins, 
should  go  down  to  hell  ?  Where  can  he  go  ?  He  cannot  go  to 
heaven  with  all  his  sins  upon  him.  He  died  the  enemy  of  God. 
He  died  with  his  free  will  turned  away  from   God.     He  died 


488  The  Confessional :   Its 

with  the  hatred  of  God  in  his  heart,  because  of  the  presence  oi 
sin.  Is  this  the  man  you  would  introduce  into  the  Divine 
presence  ?  Is'it  on  those  lips,  accustomed  to  blasphemy,  that  you 
would  place  the  ringing  canticle  of  praise  ?  He  has  no  idea  of 
the  joys  of  heaven,  for  they  are  spiritual ;  and  this  man's  only 
idea  or  notion  of  delight  was  in  gross,  carnal  sensuality.  He 
has  no  idea  of  the  Lord  of  heaven  ;  for,  all  his  lifetime,  he  spoke 
the  language  of  hell — cursing  and  blaspheming.  He  has  no  idea 
of  the  God  of  heaven  ;  for,  all  his  lifetime,  he  served  the  demon 
of  his  own  passions  and  his  own  evil  inclinations.  There  is 
nothing  in  him  attuned  with  heaven.  It  would  be  violence 
offered  to  him  to  send  him  to  heaven,  and  to  make  him  enter 
into  the  joys  of  God.  No ;  it  is  natural  that  he  should  go 
down  into  the  cess-pool  of  hell ;  either  his  sin  must  leave  him, 
or  else  that  sin,  abiding  upon  his  soul,  must  leave  him  under 
the  brand  of  God's  vengeance  for  ever. 

What  is  more  natural,  my  friends,  than  the  idea  of  the  water 
flowing  from  the  little  fountain  on  the  mountain's  summit — flow- 
ing onward  in  its  little  bed,  falling  now  over  one  rock  and  then 
over  another,  receiving  its  various  tributaries  as  it  flows  along, 
and  growing  in  size  until,  at  length,  it  becomes  a  great  river  in 
the  lower  plains  ?  Falling  from  one  cascade  into  another,  it  finds 
the  deep  valley  in  the  open  country,  and  there  sweeps  into  the 
mighty  river,  spanned  by  great  bridges,  passing  through  great 
towns,  supporting  upon  its  bosom  mighty  ships  of  war  ;  until  at 
length,  turbulent,  and  with  a  thousand  impurities,  it  falls  rapidly 
into  the  deep,  wild  ocean.  This  is  all  natural.  That  a  man 
should  stand  upon  that  river's  side  and  say : 

"  Flow  on,  thou  shining  river  ! " 

Is  natural.  But  that  a  man  should  be  able  to  stand  in  the  mid- 
tide  of  that  mighty  stream,  and  with  his  hands  to  push  it  back 
against  its  course  ;  to  make  it  flow  up  through  the  upper  lands, 
and  up  to  the  higher  levels;  to  make  it  flow  upwards  against  the 
cataract ;  to  bring  it  up,  purifying  it  as  he  goes,  until,  at  length, 
from  the  turbulent,  impure,  and  muddy  stream,  he  brings  it  back 
again  over  the  rocks,  until,  pure  as  crystal,  it  arrives  at  its 
source,  and  empties  into  that  source — this  would  be  a  wonder- 
ful achievement !  This  would  be  power !  And  what  this  wouid 
be  is  precisely  what  the  omnipotence  of  God  does  here  in  the 


Effect  on  Society.  489 

confessional,  as  compared  with  His  action  in  permitting  the 
damned  to  go  down  into  hell.  That  God  should  permit  the 
sinner  to  go  down  into  hell,  and  that  He  should  visit  him  there 
with  His  everlasting  punishment,  is  natural  and  necessary,  and 
shows  the  power  God  possesses,  and  need  excite  no  astonish- 
ment. But  that  the  Almighty  God  should  stop  the  sinner  in 
his  mad  career  of  sin  ;  that  He  should  make  him  stand  whilst 
he  was  hurrying  on  through  every  channel  of  impurity,  and 
pride,  and  avarice,  and  dishonesty,  gathering  every  element  of 
corruption  and  defilement  as  he  went  along;  swelling  forth  in  the 
tide  of  his  iniquity  as  he  was  nearing  the  great  ocean  of  hell — 
that  God  should  stop  him,  send  him  back  again  into  the  halls  of 
memory,  and  there,  through  the  upward  stream  of  his  life, 
cleanse  him  from  his  impurity  and  sin  as  he  went  along,  until,  at 
length,  he  brought  him  back  to  the  pure,  limpid  fountain-head 
of  his  baptismal  innocence — this  is  the  wonder.  Here  shines 
the  omnipotence  of  God.  And  this  is  precisely  the  act  which 
He  does  when  He  takes  the  sinner  and  cleanses  him  from  his 
sin  in  the  confessional ! 

But  how  wonderfully  are  His  love  and  mercy  blended  in  this 
action  of  Christ.  We  know  that  the  subject — the  very  subject 
of  His  omnipotence — is  the  sinner — a  man  who  has  violated, 
perhaps,  the  most  essential  and  important  of  God's  laws  ;  a 
man  who  may  have  the  blood  of  the  innocent  on  his  red-stained 
hand  ;  a  man  from  whose  soul  every  vestige  of  divine  remem- 
brance and  of  spiritual  aspiration  may  have  departed,  because 
of  his  impurity  ;  a  man  who  may  have  committed  sins  worse 
even  than  those  that  brought  the  deluge  of  fire  from  Heaven  on 
the  cities  of  Pentapolis  ;  a  man  who  may  have  lived  only  to  de- 
vote himself  to  every  most  wicked  and  diabolical  purpose,  until 
he  has  frittered  into  pieces  and  broken  every  one  of  God's  holy 
laws  and  commands — that  man  comes  and  stands  before  this 
enraged  and  offended  God — stands  before  this  God  who  has  a 
hell  prepared  for  him — stands  before  this  God  whose  goodness 
he  has  despised — whose  grace  he  has  trampled  upon — whose 
blood  he  has  wasted  away — whose  every  attribute  he  has  out- 
raged— and  he  asks  that  God  to  deal  with  him !  He  comes  as  a 
criminal,  and  to  that  God  he  says  :  "  Lord  !  here  I  am  !  There  is 
not  in  nether  hell  one  so  bad  as  I.  There  is  no  record,  in  the 
annals  of  Thy  dealings  with  sinners,  of  any  sinner  so  terrible  as  I 


49°  The  Confessional :  Its 

have  been.  And  now,  I  wish  to  enter  with  Thee  into  judgment ! '' 
If  that  man  had  violated  the  laws  of  this  world,  as  he  has  violated 
the  laws  of  God  ;  if  that  man  had  insulted  human  society  as  he  has 
insulted  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ;  if  that  man's  iniquities  were  only 
taken  cognizance  of  by  an  earthly  tribunal,  see  how  they  would 
deal  with  him  !  He  would  be  dragged  from  his  house,  perhaps  in 
the  noonday,  by  the  rough  officers  of  justice ;  he  would  be 
taken  publicly  through  the  streets  of  the  city,  every  eye  look- 
ing at  him  curiously,  every  hand  pointing  at  him  as  the  great 
criminal — the  man  who  committed  such  a  murder — the  man 
who  did  such  and  such  wicked  things.  He  would  be  flung  into 
a  dark  dungeon,  in  a  prison,  and,  after  days  and  days  of  waiting 
and  anxiety,  he  would  be  brought  again  into  the  open  court, 
and  the  whole  world  called  on  to  hear  the  testimony  of  his 
crime,  and  to  behold  his  shame.  Oh,  no  feeling  of  his  would 
be  spared  !  He  would  not  be  allowed  to  shrink  into  a  corner 
of  that  court,  there  to  hide  his  guilty  head.  No,  but  he  must 
stand  forth  and  confront  the  witnesses  who  depose  against  him, 
and  quietly  and  calmly  swear  away  his  life's  blood.  He  must 
be  exposed  to  the  heartless  jeers  and  inquiring  gaze  of  the 
world,  that  is  so  unsympathizing.  He  may  be,  perhaps,  on  his 
transit  from  the  court-house  to  the  prison,  exposed  to  the  groans 
and  the  hisses  of  the  multitude.  When  he  is  found  guilty,  and 
his  crime. is  brought  home  to  him,  then  comes  the  awful  moment. 
A  judge,  in  solemn  dignity,  tells  him  that  his  life  is  forfeit,  and 
that  he  must  die  a  death  of  public  infamy  and  ignominy  to  ex- 
piate his  crime.  Thus  does  the  world  deal  with  its  criminals. 
But  if  this  criminal  of  whom  I  speak,  appear  before  the  Son  of 
God,  and  say  :  "  Saviour,  Judge  ;  let  us  enter  into  judgment !  " 
Christ  takes  him  by  the  hand,  and  He  warns  off  the  crowd. 
Christ  takes  him  and  brings  him  into  a  secret  tribunal  ;  calls  no 
witnesses  against  him  ;  allows  no  finger  of  shame  to  be  pointed 
at  him  ;  listens  to  what  he  has  to  say  against  himself;  He  says  : 
"  Speak,  my  son,  and  speak  freely  !  "  He  speaks  his  deeds  of 
shame,  it  is  true,  in  the  ears  of  a  man.  That  man  is  there  as 
the  representative  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  whose  mercy  he  is 
about  to  administer.  He  hears  the  whispered  word.  It  must 
not  be  heard  even  by  the  angel  of  mercy  who  is  there,  but  only 
by  the  sinner  and  the  priest  of  Jesus  Christ.  That  word  falls 
upon  the  priest's  ear ;  for  a  moment  it  enters  into  his  mind 


Effect  on  Society.  491 

and  in  a  moment  it  passes  away.  Just  as  a  little  child,  on  a  calm 
summer  evening,  might  take  a  pebble  and  fling  it  into  the  besom 
of  a  deep,  still,  placid  lake  ;  for  an  instant  there  is  a  ripple  on  the 
face  of  the  water  ;  there  is  a  little  circlet  of  waves  ;  presently  these 
die  away,  the  waters  close,  and  the  pebble  is  lost  forever.  No  hu- 
man eye  shall  ever  see  it  again.  So,  for  an  instant,  the  sound  of  the 
sinner's  voice  makes  but  a  ripple  upon  the  ear  of  the  priest,  thrills 
for  an  instant  on  the  delicate  tympanum,  and  passes  from  that 
into  the  unfathomable  ocean  of  the  merciful  heart  of  Jesus  Christ. 
The  waters  of  Christ's  mercy  close  over  it ;  and  that  sin  is  gone — 
gone  forever.  Not  eye  of  angel,  not  eye  of  man,  nor  eye  of  God 
at  the  hour  'of  judgment,  shall  ever  look  upon  it  again  ;  for 
the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  has  fallen  upon  it  and  washed  it 
away.  How  little  it  costs  the  priest  to  say,  "I  absolve  thee 
in  the  name  of  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost," — these 
three  words!  How  little  it  costs  the  sinner!  Scarcely  a 
humiliation  !  If,  indeed,  a  man  had  to  proclaim  his  confession, 
and  make  it  publicly;  if  a  man  had  to  make  it  before  the  assem- 
bly of  the  faithful ;  if  a  man  had  to  make  it  on  a  Sunday  morn- 
ing, before  all  the  people,  as  they  were  crowding  in  to  Mass  ;  even 
then,  if  such  a  confession  would  obtain  pardon  for  me,  great  God, 
would  it  not  be  a  great  gift  to  be  able  to  purchase  such  a  grace 
even  at  such  a  cost — even  at  the  ruin  of  my  character — even  with 
all  the  ignominy  and  contumely  that  I  would  sustain  at  my  public 
confession  !  It  would  be  cheap,  considering  what  I  got  in  return. 
If  the  law  of  Almighty  God  said  to  the  sinner  :  "  I  will  bring 
thee  to  the  stake — and  only  at  the  last  moment,  when  the  last 
drop  of  life's  blood  is  coming  from  that  broken  heart — then,  and 
only  then,  will  I  absolve  thee  !  " — would  it  not  be  cheaply  pur- 
chased— this  pardon  of  God,  this  grace  of  God,  this  eternity  of 
God's  joy  in  heaven — even  by  the  rendering  of  the  last  drop 
of  our  blood  !  But  no  !  Full  of  love,  full  of  commiseration, 
Christ,  our  Lord,  comes  to  us  with  mercy,  sparing  every  feeling 
of  the  sinner,  making  every  difficult  thing  smooth,  trying  to 
anticipate,  by  the  sweetness  of  His  mercy,  all  the  humiliation, 
and  all  the  pain  ;  shrouding  all  under  that  wonderful  veil  of 
secrecy  which  has  never  for  an  instant  been  rent  since  the 
Church  was  first  founded  ;  and,  in  the  end,  it  is  the  only 
tribunal  where,  when  a  man  is  found  guilty,  the  only  sentence 
pronounced  on  him  is  one  of   acquittal.      In  other  tribunals, 


492  The  Confessional :  Its 

when  a  man  is  found  guilty,  he  receives  his  punishment.  In 
the  tribunal  of  penitence,  all  a  man  has  to  say  is  :  '•  Of  these  am 
I  guilty  before  my  God ;  oh,  my  God,  with  sorrow  I  confess 
them  !  "  The  only  sentence  is  :  "  You  are  acquitted  !  go  in 
peace  !  "  No  vestige  of  sin — no  stain  of  your  iniquity  is  upon 
you  !  The  sin  is  gone,  and  the  terrible  curse  that  was  upon 
your  soul  is  changed  into  a  blessing !  The  angel-guardian 
that  accompanied  the  sinner  to  the  door  of  the  confessional 
awaits  without,  even  as  the  Magdalene  waited  beside  the  tomb, 
whilst  the  body  of  our  Lord  lay  there.  For,  even  as  the  angels, 
when  the  midnight  hour  of  the  resurrection  came,  beheld  a  glorious 
figure  rise  from  that  tomb,  and  flung  out  their  hearts  and  voices 
in  adoration  of  the  risen  Saviour,  from  whom  every  wound 
and  every  deformity  had  disappeared ;  so  the  angel-guardian, 
waiting  prayerfully,  sorrowfully,  outside  the  confessional,  turns, 
for  an  instant,  when  that  door  opens,  and  rejoices  when  he  be- 
holds the  man  who  went  in,  covered  with  sin,  come  forth  as  pure 
as  that  angel  himself.  The  man  who  went  in  loaded  with 
crimes  comes  forth  with  the  blessing  of  the  Eternal  God,  shining 
with  the  characters  of  immortal  light,  upon  his  forehead  ;  the 
man  who  went  in  dead  and  buried  in  his  sin,  has  heard,  within 
that  secret  tribunal,  the  voice  which  said  :  "  Lazarus,  come 
forth !  "  and  he  has  risen  and  come  forth  ;  and  the  angel-guardian 
is  astonished  at  the  change  and  the  brightness  on  him.  Is  it 
not  so  ?  Was  there  not  a  sad  angel  following,  with  reluctant 
and  distant  steps,  the  woman  that  flaunted  through  the  streets 
of  Jerusalem — the  Magdalene,  with  her  flowing  robes,  and  her 
outstretched  neck  of  pride — was  there  not  an  angel  that  knew 
her  in  the  day  of  her  innocence,  and  was  now  stricken  with 
misery  to  behold  so  much  shame  ?  Oh,  but  when  that  angel 
saw  her  as  she  rose  from  the  feet  of  Jesus  Christ,  that  she  had 
washed  with  her  tears — oh,  when  that  angel  saw  her  as  she 
rose,  with  the  words  of  the  Lord  upon  her  head — "Oh.  woman, 
go  in  peace  :  thou  hast  loved  much  and  all  is  forgiven  thee  !  " — 
then,  admiring  the  glory  of  the  Magdalene's  zeal,  he  struck  the 
key-note  of  that  voice  that  re-echoed  in  the  heavens,  until  the 
vaults  of  heaven  were  shaken  again,  when  the  nine  choirs  of 
angels  gave  glory  to  God  over  the  one  sinner  that  did  penance ! 
So  it  is  with  us.  We  have  seen  the  love,  the  mercy,  the 
power  that  is  exercised  towards  us. 


Efftct  on  Soctcty.  493 

And  now,  dearly  beloved  brethren,  let  us  consider  the  action 
of  this  sacrament  upon  society. 

The  Catholic  Church  received  from  Christ,  our  Lord,  a  two- 
fold mission.  That  mission  the  world  is  unwilling  to  recognize  ; 
but  that  mission  it  is  the  destiny  of  the  Church  of  God  to  fulfill 
until  the  end  of  time.  That  mission  has  in  it  a  two  fold  char- 
acter.  To  sinners,  to  those  who  are  in  darkness,  it  brings  the 
light ;  to  those  who  are  dead  in  the  corruption  of  sin  it  brings 
the  life  of  Divine  grace.  This  two  fold  mission  is  perfectly 
clear  from  the  words  of  Christ  to  his  Apostles  :  "  You  are  the 
light  of  the  earth,"  He  said.  "  Vos  estis  lux  viundi :  You 
are  the  light  of  the  world."  "  And  you  are  the  salt  of  the 
earth."  The  light  to  illumine  the  world's  darkness  ;  the  salt  to 
heal  and  purify  the  world's  corruption.  The  first  of  these  mis- 
sions the  Church  of  God  fulfills  in  her  teaching ;  for  the 
Psalmist  said,  with  truth,  "The  declaration  of  Thy  Word,  oh 
God,  brings  light  and  intelligence  to  Thy  little  children  !"  And, 
as  it  is  the  Church's  destiny  to  be,  until  the  end  of  time,  the 
light  of  the  world,  so  the  light  which  is  to  come  from  her 
must  be  the  very  light  of  God.  Therefore,  the  word  of  truth, 
that  creates  that  light,  can  never  die  away  from  the  Church's 
lips ;  nor,  coming  from  those  lips,  can  it  ever  be  polluted  by  the 
slightest  iota  or  admixture  of  error.  She  has  the  power  given 
to  her  by  our  Lord,  not  only  to  illumine  men  in  their  dark- 
ness, but  to  heal  them  in  their  corruption.  What  is  the  corrup- 
tion of  the  sinner  ?  What  is  that  corruption,  that  infirmity, 
that  defilement  to  which  Christ  alluded  when  He  said  to  His 
Apostles :  "  Ye  are  the  salt  of  the  earth,"  ye  must  be  put  upon 
the  sore  places  of  the  world  ;  ye  must  be  put  upon  the  fester- 
ing wounds  of  the  world.  What  are  these  sore  places — 
these  festering  wounds  ?  They  are  the  sores  and  wounds  of  sia 
in  the  soul.  Sin  is  the  sore  spot  of  the  soul.  Sin  is  the  awful 
"'ulcer  of  society.  Sin,  that  abounds  everywhere.  For  it  abounds 
in  every  circle  :  in  the  commercial  circles,  making  men  untrust- 
worthy and  dishonest ;  in  the  domestic  circle,  making  servants 
pilfer  and  steal ;  making  masters  and  mistresses  exacting  and 
unjust ;  making  children  disobedient ;  making  parents  forgetful 
of  their  duties  to  their  children  ;  making  the  young  man  impure, 
and  the  married  man  unfaithful.  All  these  things,  all  these  evils 
— that  are  teeming  around  us — that  meet  us  wherever  we  turn — 


494  The  Confessional :  Its 

that  we  cannot  avoid  seeing  and  hearing,  be  we  ever  so  fastidi- 
ous—they come  under  the  very  touch  of  our  hand,  and  they  dis- 
gust us  with  this  life  of  ours.  Then  we  are  fain  to  cry  out  with 
the  Psalmist,  "  O  God,  woe  is  me,  because  my  pilgrimage  here 
is  prolonged !  "  All  these  things  are  the  corruptions  of  man- 
kind ;  and  the  power  that  the  Church  received  when  she  was 
called  the  "  salt  of  the  earth,"  is  to  purge  away  all  this,  to  re- 
medy all  these  evils,  heal  all  these  wounds,  and  sweeten  all  that 
bitterness  and  all  that  corruption  of  society.  All  this  she  does 
through  the  sacrament  of  penance — or  through  the  confessional. 
There  is  she  truly  the  saviour  of  society,  and  the  world  cannot 
do  without  her.  How  significant  it  is  that,  when  Germany  gave 
up  the  faith  and  the  sacraments  three  hundred  years  ago,  such 
was  the  immorality,  such  was  the  impurity  that  filled  the  com- 
munity at  once,  that  actually  a  German  city  was  obliged  to  peti- 
tion to  have  the  confessional,  or  the  sacrament  of  penance  restored. 
All  classes  of  society  said:  "The  responsibility  is  gone — the 
yoke  is  removed  from  us — we  need  no  longer  betake  ourselves 
to  the  task  of  looking  up  our  sins  and  weeping  over  them,  and 
wailing  over  them,  and  taking  measures  of  avoiding  them,  or 
incurring  the  pain  and  humiliation  of  confessing  them."  All 
this  is  gone  ;  and  then,  like  the  Hebrews  of  old,  they  rose  up, 
joined  hands,  and  danced  round  the  new-found  idol — the  golden 
calf  of  their  own  sensuality  and  wickedness.  "You  are  the  salt 
of  the  earth,"  He  said  to  them.  Oh,  if  the  Catholic  Church 
was  not  on  this  earth  !  If  she  were  not  here  with  her  sacraments  to 
create  purity  and  to  preserve  it  ;  to  create  honesty  and  to  enforce 
it ;  to  bring  home  the  full  and  entire  responsibility  of  every  man, 
and  to  him  personally — to  bring  home  to  every  soul — the  deform- 
ity of  sin,  the  necessity  of  repenting  individually  for  each  and  every 
'sin  ;  to  shake  every  soul  in  her  sacrament  of  penance,  from  the 
lethargy  of  sin— oh,  I  protest,  my  friends,  I  believe,  if  the  Catho- 
lic Church  were  not  here,  operating  upon  her  millions  throughout 
the  world,  to  do  this,  that  long  before  this  time,  the  chariot  of 
society,  rolling  down  the  steep  hill  of  human  infirmity,  would 
have  precipitated  the  whole  world  into  destruction  and  death. 

How  is  it  that  Protestafit  employers  and  masters  are  so  anx- 
ious to  have  Catholic  servants,  Catholic  "  help,"  Catholic  appren- 
tices, Catholic  people  about  them?  How  is  it?  Because  they 
are  shrewd  enough  to  know  that  the  confessional  which  they 


Effect  on  Society.  495 

despise  creates  honesty — enforces  it.  There  is  no  stronger  way 
to  enforce  honesty  than  to  get  a  man  to  believe  that  he  cannot 
live  without  Jesus  Christ — and  that  Jesus  Christ  is  on  the  altar 
waiting  for  him,  to  tell  him  that  between  him  and  the  Saviour 
stands  a  barrier  that  he  must  overcome,  if  he  becomes  dishonest, 
and  that  he  cannot  do  without  restoring  to  the  last  farthing 
whatever  he  has  unjustly  got ;  to  tell  him  that  if  he  becomes  a 
thief — public  or  private — that  the  accumulation  of  his  thievery 
will  build  up  an  impenetrable  wall  between  him  and  God  ;  and 
that,  until  that  wall  is  pulled  to  pieces  by  restitution,  he  never 
can  approach  the  sacraments  here  nor  the  glory  of  God  here- 
after. An  English  Protestant  clergyman  came  to  me  once,  when 
I  was  on  the  English  mission,  and  he  said  to  me:  "Father,  I 
come  to  complain  of  one  of  my  man-servants."  I  said  to  him, 
"Well,  sir,  what  on  earth  have  I  to  do  with  your  servants?" 
"Oh,"  he  said,  "all  my  servants,  both  men  and  women,  are 
Catholics  ;  and  I  would  not  think  of  employing  anybody  else." 
"  What  complaint,"  I  said,  "  have  you  to  make  then  of  any  cf 
them?"  "  Well,"  he  said,  "  I  insist  on  their  going  to  confess.oi 
once  a  month ;  and  this  man  has  not  been  there  in  the  last  two 
months.  So  I  came  here  to  insist  on  his  going."  "  Well,  but 
you  do  not  believe  in  it."  "  No,"  he  said,  "  I  know  I  do  not  be- 
lieve in  it ;  but  so  long  as  my  Catholic  people  do  go,  they  will 
not  steal  from  me ;  and  so  long  as  they  do  not  go  to  confession 
and  communion,  they  will  not  receive  any  wages  from  me  !  " 
What  is  the  agency  that  touches  the  depravity  of  the  world  and 
creates  purity  and  honesty?  I  answer,  it  is  the  confessional. 
Remember  that  the  idea  of  purity  as  a  virtue,  as  it  lies  in  the 
mind  of  Christ  and  in  the  mind  of  His  Church,  is  not  merely  an 
external  decorum  ;  not  merely  the  avoiding  of  gross,  actual  sins  ; 
but  that  it  begins  in  the  very  thoughts  in  the  inner  chambers  of " 
the  soul  of  man  ;  that  it  will  not  allow  any  impure  or  defiling 
imaginations  to  rest  there  for  a  single  instant ;  that  it  will  not 
allow  as  much  even  as  an  impure  thought  to  be  sanctioned  for 
one  second  by  the  will ;  and  out  of  that  interior  purity  of 
soul,  of  thought,  of  imagination,  springs  the  external  virtue 
of  chastity ;  for,  without  that  interior  purity,  rendering  the  soul 
itself  as  candid,  as  white,  as  innocent  as  was  the  soul  of  Mary 
on  the  day  of  her  assumption — without  that,  all  external  chastity 
would  be  as  a  dead  body  without  its  soul.     Now,  the  only  way 


49t>  The  Confessional:   Its 

to  create  that  interior  purity — to  create  the  essence  of  the  virtue, 
to  make  the  soul  of  the  virtue,  the  life  of  the  virtue — the  only 
way  is  to  establish  firmly  in  the  soul  and  in  the  mind  of  man, 
the  idea  of  his  responsibility  to  God  for  every  thought  of  his 
mind,  as  well  as  for  every  action  and  word  of  his  life  ;  to  bring 
him  face  to  face  with  Christ ;  to  make  him  not  only  know  but 
feel  that  He  whom  he  serves,  looks  with  a  penetrating  and  scrutin- 
izing gaze  into  the  very  inner  chambers  of  the  soul.  How  does 
the  Church  do  this?  By  bringing  that  young  man  to  confession  ; 
by  putting  him  face  to  face  with  Jesus  Christ ;  scrutinizing  and 
examining  his  thoughts,  his  words,  and  actions;  by  making  him 
search,  by  the  light  of  memory,  every  cranny  of  his  soul,  and  of 
his  imagination  ;  by  making  him  feel  that  even  although  his  lips 
may  never  have  breathed  an  obscene  word,  even  though  this 
man  may  never  have  committed  an  impure  action,  he  might  still 
be  as  impure  and  as  bad  as  the  worst  of  men.  This  is  only  done 
by  that  action  of  the  Church,  which  not  only  teaches  a  man  to 
be  pure,  but  drags  him,  as  it  were,  with  holy  violence,  and  puts 
him  into  the  presence  of  the  God  of  purity ;  and  says,  "  Come, 
open  your  heart,  my  son,  and  let  the  light  of  Jesus  Christ  into 
your  soul ! " 

Thus  it  is,  that  from  the  confessional  spring  those  virtues  by 
which  man  acts  upon  his  fellow-man.  The  index  virtue  is 
purity ;  and  the  next  virtue,  in  relation  to  our  fellow-man,  is 
honesty.  The  third  virtue  is  charity.  And  behold  how  the 
confessional  acts  here.  If  a  man  speaks  badly  of  his  neighbor, 
if  he  ruins  that  neighbor's  character  or  reputation,  if  he  gets 
that  neighbor  thrown  out  of  some  lucrative  employment  by  his 
whisperings,  or  his  tales — he  goes  to  confession ;  he  says,  I  am 
sorry  for  the  sin  I  have  committed  ;  and  he  finds,  perhaps,  to 
his  astonishment,  that  the  priest  will  say  to  him,  "  There  is 
another  difficulty;"  until  he  makes  good  that  man's  charactei, 
there  is  no  absolution  for  him ;  until  he  has  swallowed  the  lie 
he  has  told,  there  is  no  pardon  for  him ;  until  he  has  restored 
to  his  neighbor  the  fair  name  and  fame  of  which,  by  his  whisper- 
ing, and  enmity,  and  injustice,  he  had  robbed  him,  there  is  no 
pardon  for  hhn.  What  greater,  what  stronger  motive  could 
there  be  to  make  a  man  guard  his  words,  to  preserve  him  from 
detraction,  to  make  him  measure  well  his  words  before  he  in- 
flicts an  injury  on  his  neighbor ;  when  he  knows  if  he  gives  way 


Effect  on  Society.  497 

to  this  mean  jealousy  or  enmity,  if  he  says  these  things  or  pub- 
lishes them,  even  though  men  may  forget  it,  God  will  not  for- 
get it  in  the  interests  of  his  neighbor.  "  To  communion,"  this 
man  must  say,  "  I  cannot  go  ;  nor  cross  the  threshold  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  until  I  have  gone  out  and  swallowed  this 
lie  that  I  have  told." 

And  so,  pursue  our  relations  to  each  other,  to  society,  and  to 
those  around  us,  into  every  detail  of  social  life,  and  you  there 
will  find  the  Church  following  you,  guiding  your  footsteps  by 
her  light,  preserving  your  souls  from  sin,  or  touching  them  with 
a  healing  hand  if  you  have  fallen  into  sin.  It  is,  therefore,  no 
wonder  at  all,  my  friends,  that  every  heresy,  almost,  that  ever 
sprang  up  in  the  Church,  assailed  the  confessional  first.  Nearly 
all  heresies  united  in  this — at  least  many  of  them — offering  a 
bribe  to  poor  human  nature.  And  the  bribe  was,  "  You  need 
not  go  any  more  to  confession."  When  Luther  started  his 
Protestantism  the  world  was  shocked  ;  for  as  soon  as  the  people 
heard,  "  Oh,  it  is  all  folly  to  go  to  confession !  You  need  not 
go  any  more  !  there  is  no  necessity !  " — he  abolished  the  obliga- 
tion of  making  restitution  ;  he  abolished  the  form  of  the  con- 
fessional, that  has  restrained  so  many  souls  and  kept  them  within 
settled,  salutary  barriers ;  he  abolished  all  that,  and  left  men  to 
their  own  devices  ;  and  he  left  the  world,  the  Protestant  world, 
as  if  Christ,  our  Lord,  had  never  come  upon  earth,  never  touched 
our  humanity;  because  he  left  it  without  the  remedies  by  which 
sin  could  be  avoided,  and  evaded  ;  and  he  left  the  accumulated 
sins  of  man,  from  his  childhood  to  his  old  age,  like  a  mountain 
upon  him,  to  bear  them — and  to  carry  them  before  the  judgment- 
seat  of  Christ.  Ah,  cruel  and  cruel,  indeed,  was  the  heart  of 
him  who  devised  this  infernal  scheme  !  Oh,  cruel  Luther !  Oh, 
Luther,  when  thou  didst  say  to  Jesus  Christ  and  to  His  Church, 
"  Let  no  more  pardon  and  no  more  grace  come  from  you  !  Let 
men  live  without  you  !  " — terrible  was  that  denial  of  the  greatest 
of  earth's  comforts,  as  well  as  most  substantial  of  heaven's  bene- 
fits !  For  what  greater  comfort  can  a  man  have — if  there  be  any 
hidden  sin  weighing  upon  his  spirit,  breaking  his  heart,  loading 
him  with  a  burden  which  he  cannot  bear  alone — what  is  the 
natural  instinct  of  that  man  ?  To  find  a  friend,  to  unbosom 
himself  to  that  friend,  to  lighten  his  own  burthen  by  sharing  it 
with  another.     Even  if  that  friend  has  no  power  to  relieve  him, 


49  g  The  Confessional :  Its 

even  if  he  have  nothing  to  give  him  but  a  word  of  sympathy  or 
consolation — merely  to  tell,  merely  to  open  the  heart,  is  such 
relief__SUch  relief  as  can  only  be  felt  by  those  who,  in  order  to 
gain  it,  might  else  speak  their  sin  before  the  world.  But  the 
great  drawback  is,  "  where  shall  we  find  this  friend  !  "  We 
must  demand  of  him  sympathy;  we  must  demand  of  him 
patience  ;  but,  above  all,  what  we  rarely  find,  we  must  demand 
of  him  to  keep  whatever  we  tell  him  a  secret.  How  rarely  do 
you  find  a  friend  with  whom  you  can  entrust  a  secret?  Tell  a 
man  a  thing  that  you  would  not  wish  the  world  to  know,  and 
the  old  proverb  is  that  you  are  in  that  man's  power  for  the  rest 
of  your  life.  Why?  Because  if  he  tells  that  about  you,  you 
are  ruined  !  And  he  may  ruin  you,  because  you  put  yourself  in 
his  power.  But  who  ever  thought  this  of  a  priest  in  the  con- 
fessional? Did  it  ever  come  across  a  Catholic's  mind?  I  verily 
believe  it  never  came,  even  as  a  temptation  from  hell  to  tempt 
us  against  telling  one's  sins.  Well  you  know  that  that  man  has 
no  power  even  to  remember ;  well  you  know  that  you  can  meet 
that  man  an  hour  afterward,  and  you  can  put  your  hand  into 
his,  as  if  you  had  never  bent  your  knee  to  him  ;  that  he  will 
never  be  so  infamous  a  blasphemer  as  to  remember  that  which 
the  Almighty  God  in  heaven  has  forgotten  ! 

Thus  it  is  that  the  voice  in  the  confessional  acts  on  society. 
If  the  whole  world  were  Catholic — and  I  will  conclude  with  this 
sentence — if  the  whole  world  were  Catholic,  and  that  all  men 
consented  to  go  regularly  to  the  sacraments,  and  to  approach 
worthily  to  the  sacrament  of  penance,  this  alone  would  put  an 
end  to  all  sin.  There  would  be  no  more  sin.  There  would  be 
no  more  heart-breaking,  no  more  tears,  no  more  terrific  records 
of  robberies  and  murders,  no  more  women  hardening  their  hearts 
and  making  them  more  ferocious  than  the  tigress  when  she 
devours  and  tears  her  young ;  no  more  of  that  cautious,  cold, 
calculating  dishonesty — men  casting  their  wiles  about  each  other 
like  a  spider's  web,  to  entrap  each  other ;  no  misery  in  this 
world,  all  would  be  happiness,  if  men  would  only  open  their 
festering  souls  and  let  in  the  salt  of  the  power  and  of  the  grace 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ ! 

Thus  do  we  behold  the  action  of  the  confessional  on  society. 
Oh,  my  friends,  let  us  pray  that  God  may  enlighten  those  who, 
without  the  pale  of  the  Catholic  Church,  go  on  from  day  to  day, 


Effect  on  Society.  499 

from  year  to  year,  adding  sin  to  sin,  and  bearing  the  accumu- 
lated burden  of  their  sins  before  the  eternal  judgment-seat  of 
Jesus  Christ. 

Whilst  we  pray  for  them,  oh,  let  us,  like  good  men  and  true, 
enter  into  those  privileges  and  graces  which  we  enjoy,  cleansing 
our  souls  from  sin,  preserving  them  in  their  purity  by  the  fre- 
quent application  of  grace,  which  destroys  those  sins  at  the 
beginning,  and,  by  frequenting  confession  and  holy  communion, 
build  up  our  souls  upon  the  grace  of  graces,  and  strength  of 
strengths,  until  we  are  gathered,  in  the  fullness  of  the  years  of 
our  manhood,  into  the  joy  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 


THE  BLESSED  EUCHARIST. 


f; 


[Preached   in  St.  Michael's  Church,  New  York,   on   Sunday  morning,  June  2d, 
1872.] 

EARLY  BELOVED  BRETHREN:  in  this  wonderful 
age  of  ours,  there  is  nothing  that  creates  in  the  think- 
ing mind  so  much  astonishment  and  wonder  as  the 
fact  that  the  Catholic  Church  stands  before  the  world 
in  all  the  grandeur  of  her  truthfulness,  and  that  the  intellect  of 
this  age  of  ours  seems  incapable  of  apprehending  her  claims,  or 
of  acknowledging  her  grandeur.  Men  in  every  walk  of  life  are 
in  pursuit  of  the  true  and  the  beautiful.  The  poet  seeks  it  in 
his  verse,  the  philosopher  in  his  speculations,  the  statesman  in 
his  legislation,  the  artist  in  the  exhibition  of  his  art.  And, 
whilst  all  men  profess  thus  to  pursue  the  true  and  the  beautiful, 
they  wilfully  shut  their  eyes  against  that  which  is  the  truest  and 
most  beautiful  of  all  things  upon  the  earth — the  Holy  Catholic 
Church  of  Jesus  Christ.  I  don't  know  whether  there  be  any 
Protestants  amongst  you  here  to-day ;  I  believe  there  are  not. 
But  whether  they  be  here,  or  whether  they  be  absent,  I  weep 
in  my  heart  and  soul,  over  their  blindness  and  their  folly,  that 
they  cannot  recognize  the  only  religion  which  is  logical,  because 
it  is  true ;  the  only  Church  which  can  afford  to  stand  before  the 
whole  world,  and  bear  the  shock  of  every  mind,  and  the  criticism 
of  every  intellect,  because  she  comes  from  God.  Now,  amid  the 
many  features  of  divine  beauty  and  grandeur  and  harmony  that 
the  Almighty  God  has  set  upon  the  face  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
the  first  and  the  greatest  of  her  mysteries,  the  greatest  of  her 
beauties,  both  intellectual  and  spiritual,  is  the  awful  presence  of 
Jesus  Christ,  who  makes  Himself,  really  and  truly,  here,  an 


The  Blessed  Eucharist,  501 

abiding  and  present  God  in  the  Blessed  Eucharist.  I  have 
chosen  this  presence  as  the  subject  and  theme  of  my  observa- 
tions to  you  to-day,  because  we  are  yet  celebrating  (within  the 
octave),  the  festival  of  Corpus  Christi.  We  are  yet  in  spirit,  with 
our  holy  mother,  the  Church,  at  the  foot  of  the  altar,  adoring  in 
an  especial  manner  Him  who  is  here  present  at  all  times  ;  and 
rejoicing,  with  a  peculiar  joy,  for  that  grace,  surpassing  all  graces, 
which  the  Almighty  God  has  given  to  His  Church,  in  the  abiding 
presence  of  Jesus  Christ  amongst  us. 

Most  of  you,  I  dare  say,  know  that  what  I  propose  to  you 
to-day  is  to  consider  that  presence  as  the  fulfillment  of  the  de- 
signs of  God,  and  the  fulfillment  of  all  the  wants  of  man.  If  I 
can  show  you  what  these  designs  are,  and  what  these  wants  are, 
and  if  I  can  sufficiently  indicate  to  you  that  they  are  fulfilled 
only  in  the  Blessed  Eucharist — then,  my  brethren,  I  conclude, 
without  the  slightest  hesitation,  that  in  no  form  of  religion — in 
no  Church,  can  the  designs  of  God  and  the  wants  of  man  meet 
their  fulfillment,  save  in  that  one  Church,  in  that  one  holy  re- 
ligion, in  which  Christ  is  substantiated,  under  the  form  of  bread 
and  wine,  in  the  Blessed  Eucharist.  In  order  to  do  this,  I  have 
to  ask  you  to  reflect  with  me  what  are  the  designs  of  God  upon 
man. 

There  are  three  remarkable  and  magnificent  epochs  that  mark 
the  action  of  Almighty  God  upon  His  creature,  man.  The  first 
of  these  was  the  moment  of  creation,  when  God  made  man. 
The  second  was  the  time  of  redemption,  when  God,  becoming 
incarnate,  offered  Himself  as  the  victim  for  man.  The  third 
epoch  was  the  institution  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  when  God 
left  Himself  to  be  the  food  of  His  children,  and  to  be  made  one 
with  them  by  the  highest  and  the  most  intimate  communion  o( 
a  present  God,  through  all  ages.  To  each  of  these  three  epochs 
I  shall  invite  your  attention  when  I  attempt  to  explain  to  you 
the  designs  of  God. 

In  the  first  of  these — that  is  to  say,  in  the  act  of  creation,  we 
find  God  stamping  His  image  on  man,  in  order  that  in  man  He 
might  see  the  likeness  of  Himself.  In  the  second  of  these 
epochs — that  of  redemption — we  find  God  assuming  and  ab- 
sorbing our  human  nature  into  Himself;  so  that  God  and  man 
became  one  and  the  same  divine  person,  in  order  that  God 
might  see  no  longer  the  iviage  of  Himself  in  man  ;  but  that  He 


502  The  Blessed  Eucharist. 

might  see  Himself  actually  and  truly  in  man.  In  ths  third  of 
these  epochs,  the  institution  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  »ve  have 
God  coming  home  to  every  individual ;  entering  into  our  hearts 
and  souls ;  bringing  all  that  He  is  and  all  that  He  has  to  each 
and  every  man  amongst  us  ;  that  the  man-God  in  whom  God 
and  man  were  united,  might  be  visible  before  the  Father's  eyes 
in  the  heart,  in  the  soul,  in  the  life  of  every  man.  The  creation, 
therefore,  was  a  design  of  mercy,  which  produced  only  an  image 
or  likeness.  The  redemption  was  a  higher  design  of  mercy, 
which  produced  God  in  man.  The  Holy  Communion  was  the 
consummation  of  these  designs  of  mercy,  which  propagated  that 
God  until  He  was  made  present  in  every  man.  Behold  the  de- 
signs of  God !  First,  then,  is  the  creation.  God,  in  the  begin- 
ning, created  all  things,  heaven  and  earth.  He  made  the  earth, 
with  all  its  beauty.  He  made  the  firmament  of  heaven,  with 
all  its  wonderful  harmony  and  order.  At  his  creative  word — 
"fiat  " — let  it  be — light  sprang  forth  from  darkness  ;  order  came 
forth  in  silent  beauty  from  chaos  and  confusion ;  every  star  in 
heaven  took  its  place  in  the  firmament  of  God;  the  sun  blazed 
forth  in  his  noonday  light  and  splendor ;  the  moon  took  up  her 
reflected  light  and  illumined  with  her  silver  rays  the  shades  of 
night.  All  the  spheres  of  God  began  their  revolution  through 
space,  to  that  exquisite  harmony  of  the  divine  commandment 
and  the  divine  law.  And  they  all  surrounded  that  spot  of  crea- 
tion which  was  earth,  and  destined  to  be  the  habitation  of  man. 
This  earth  the  Almighty  God  clothed  with  its  manifold  forms 
of  beauty.  He  gave  to  it  the  revolving  seasons — the  freshness 
of  the  spring,  the  deep  shade  of  the  summer,  the  fruitful  over- 
teeming  of  the  autumn  ;  and  every  season  took  up  its  strain  of 
joy  and  abundance  and  delight,  at  the  command  of  God.  But 
all  these  things,  every  form  of  life  that  existed,  existed  by  the 
one  word,  "fiat,"  of  the  Almighty  God.  But  now,  when  the 
heavens  above  are  prepared  ;  now,  when  the  spheres  are  all  ir 
their  places ;  now,  when  every  creature  of  God  has  received  its 
commission,  its  faculty  of  life,  light,  splendor,  and  beauty ;  the 
whole  earth,  heaven,  and  the  firmament  are  made.  Yet  no  image 
of  God  is  there  ;  for  there  is  no  intelligence  there — and  God  is 
knowledge ;  there  is  no  power  of  love  there — and  God  is  the 
highest  and  most  intimate  love ;  there  is  no  freedom  there,  but 
only  the  necessity  of  nature's  law   and   instinct ;    the   whol« 


The  Blessed  Eucharist.  503 

world,  in  all  its  beauty,  in  all  its  harmony,  still  wants  its  soul ; 
for  that  soul,  wherever  it  is  to  be,  must  be  something  like  to 
God.  Finally,  when  all  things  were  prepared,  God  took  of  the 
slime  of  the  earth,  and  made  and  fashioned  with  His  hands  a 
new  creature  ;  a  creature  that  was  to  rise  and  to  uplift  his  eyes, 
and  behold  the  sun  ;  a  creature  whose  every  form  of  material 
existence  was  to  remain  perfectly  distinct  from  all  other  forms 
of  creation.  Into  this  creature's  face  the  Almighty  God  breathed 
His  own  image  and  likeness,  in  an  imperishable  spirit — an  im- 
mortal soul.  Before  He  made  this  soul  the  mirror  of  Himself, 
He  took  thought  with  Himself,  and  said  no  longer,  "  let  it  be ;" 
but,  counselling  with  His  own  divine  wisdom,  He  said  :  "  Let 
us  make  man  unto  our  own  image  and  likeness."  And  unto 
His  own  image  and  likeness,  therefore,  He  made  him,  for  He 
breathed  uppn  him  the  inspiration  of  spiritual  life — a  living 
soul  into  the  inanimate  clay ;  and  upon  that  soul  He  stamped 
His  own  divine  image.  He  gave  to  that  soul  the  light  of 
an  intelligence  capable  of  comprehending  the  power  of  love, 
capable  of  serving  Him  and  loving  Him.  He  gave  to  that 
soul  the  faculty  of  freedom,  that,  by  no  necessary  law,  by  no 
iron  instinct,  was  this  new  creature  to  act  ;  but  with  judgment, 
and  with  thought,  and  with  intellectual  inquiry.  He  was  to 
act  freely,  and  every  action  of  his  life  was  to  flow  from  the 
fountain  of  unfettered  freedom,  like  the  actions  of  the  Almighty 
God  Himself,  whose  .very  essence  is  eternal  freedom. 

Thus  was  man  created.  Behold  the  image  of  God  stamped 
upon  him !  Oh,  how  grand,  how  magnificent,  was  this  creature ! 
The  theory  has  been  mooted  in  our  day — "  Was  it  worth  God's 
while  to  create  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars,  and  untold  firmaments 
which  no  eye  of  man  has  yet  discovered  ;  those  stars  far  away, 
exceeding  our  earth  in  their  magnitude,  in  their  splendor,  in 
their  attractive  power  and  beauty  ; — was  it  worth  God's  while — 
the  astronomer  asks — for  the  sake  of  giving  light  to  one  of  the 
smallest  of  the  planets,  to  create  so  many  others  to  revolve 
around  her  in  space?"  Yes,  I  answer;  it  was  worth  God's 
while,  for  one  man,  if  He  created  but  one — it  was  worth  His 
while  to  create  all  these  material  beauties;  because  man  alone—- 
that  one  man — would  reflect  in  his  soul  the  image  of  God-  the 
uncreated  and  spiritual  loveliness  of  his  Maker.  How  grand 
was  this  first  man,  when  he  arose  from  the  green  mound  out  of 


504  The  Blessed  Eucharist. 

which  the  Lord  created  him  !  when  he  opened  his  eyes  and  be- 
held before  him,  shrouded  in  some  dazzling  form  of  materia' 
beauty,  the  presence  of  God  !  He  opened  his  eyes  ;  and  seeing 
this  figure  of  light  and  transparency  before  him,  hearing  from 
His  lips  the  harmony  of  his  Creator's  voice,  he  knelt  in  adora- 
tion. He  alone,  of  all  the  creatures  in  the  world,  was  able  to 
appreciate  the  infinite  beauty  of  the  Maker;  and  springing  to 
that  Maker,  with  all  the  energy  of  his  spirit,  he  bowed  down  be- 
fore Him,  and  offered  the  sacrifice  of  intellectual  praise.  He 
alone,  of  all  the  creatures  of  God,  was  able  to  appreciate  the  in- 
finite eternity  of  His  existence  ;  His  omnipotence  ;  His  infinite 
goodness,  grandeur,  and  beauty.  He  alone,  of  all  God's  crea- 
tures, was  capable  of  appreciating  with  soul ; — that,  out  of  the 
appreciation  of  his  mind,  his  heart  was  moved  to  love.  And 
he  strained  towards  his  God  with  every  higher  aspjration  and 
affection  of  his  spirit.  He  alone,  of  all  the  creatures  of  God, 
was  able  to  say  out  of  the  resources  of  a  free  and  unshackled 
wrill :  "  I  will  love  Thee  !  I  will  serve  Thee,  O  God  !  for  Thou 
alone  art  worthy  of  all  love  and  all  service  for  all  time  ! "  So, 
freely  and  deliberately  weighing  the  excellencies  of  God  against 
all  created  beauty  ;  calculating  with  the  power  of  his  intelligence 
the  claims  of  God  upon  him — he  acknowledged  these  claims — 
he  acknowledged  in  his  intellect  the  infinite  beauty  of  God  ; 
because  of  his  intellectual  appreciation,  he  decided  freely  to 
serve  God  in  his  life.  That  free  decision  from  the  intellect  was 
a  God-like  act,  of  which  no  other  creature  upon  this  earth  was 
capable.  Therefore,  the  Almighty  God  appealed  to  that  act  as 
the  great  test  and  proof  of  man. 

Thus  we  see  in  the  beginning  the  Almighty  God  stamped  His 
image  upon  Hjs  people.  And  in  this  He  showed  the  design  of 
His  creation — the  greatness  of  His  mercy  and  of  His  love.  He 
had  prepared  all  things  for  man.  He  had  made  all  things  for 
him.  All  things  pointed  to  him  ;  all  nature,  newly  created  in 
all  its  beauty,  still  cried  out  for  that  crowning  beauty,  the 
beauty  of  intelligence,  the  beauty  of  the  power  of  love,  the 
grandeur  of  freedom.  And  man  was  created  as  the  very  apex, 
the  very  climax  of  God's  creation,  the  crown  and  the  perfection 
of  all.  Behold  the  mercy  of  God  !  God  might  have  left  this 
world  in  all  its  material  yet  unintellectual  beauty.  He  might 
have  left  all  his  creatures  to  enjoy  the  life  that  He  gave  them 


The  Blessed  Eucharist. 

and  to  fulfill  the  limited  and  necessary  sphere  of  their  duties— 
and  yet  never  have  sent  intelligence  and  love  and  freedom  upon 
them.  But  no;  God  wished  to  behold  Himself  in  His  creation. 
He  wished  to  be  able  to  look  down  from  Heaven  and  see  His 
image  in  his  creation.  God  wished  that  all  nature  should  hold 
up  the  mirror  of  its  resemblance  to  Him  in  man.  God's  design 
was  that  wherever  the  child  of  man  existed,  there  He,  looking 
down,  should  behold  His  own  image  in  the  depths  of  that  pure 
intelligence ;  in  the  depths  of  those  pure  affections ;  in  that  un- 
shackled, magnificent,  imperial  freedom  of  man's  will. 

This  was  the  first  design.  Far  greater  was  the  second  design 
of  God's  mercy.  God  knew  and  foreknew,  from  all  eternity, 
that  man,  by  the  abuse  of  his  free  will,  would  turn  against  his 
God.  The  Almighty  God  knew  and  foreknew,  as  if  it  were 
present  before  his  eyes— for  there  is  no  past,  no  future  to  the 
eyes  of  God :  all  things  are  present  to  Him — He  knew  and 
foreknew  that,  in  the  day  when  He  placed  Himself  and  His 
own  divine  perfection  and  His  own  claims  on  one  side,  and  the 
devil  made  the  appeal  to  the  passions  and  pride  of  man  on  the 
other  side — He  knew  that  His  free  creature  would  decide 
against  Him — would  abandon  Him — tell  Him  to  begone,  and 
take  all  His  gifts  with  Him,  and  would  clutch  the  animal  and 
base  gratifications  of  a  sensual  pride.  God  knew  this.  He 
knew  that,  in  that  act  of  man,  man  was  destined  to  cloud  his 
clear  intelligence  so  that  it  would  no  longer  reflect  the  image  of 
God — that  man  was  destined,  in  that  act,  to  pollute  his  pure 
affections,  so  that  they  should  no  longer  reflect  the  image  of 
God  in  love.  God  foresaw  and  foreknew  that  man  was  destined, 
in  that  act  of  rebellion,  to  fetter  and  enslave  his  free  will,  and 
to  make  it  no  longer  a  servant  and  minister  of  his  intelligence, 
but  of  his  passions  and  of  his  desires.  In  a  word,  God  saw 
His  own  image  broken  and  spoiled  in  man  by  the  sin  of  Adam. 

Then,  my  dearly  beloved,  in  these  eternal  designs  of  love,  God 
said  in  His  own  decrees  from  all  eternity,  "  My  image  is  gone; 
My  likeness  is  shattered  ;  My  spirit  is  no  longer  amongst  them  ; 
and  I  must  provide  a  remedy  greater  than  the  evil.  I  will 
send — in  the  second  plan  of  my  mercy  and  the  design  of  my 
love — I  will  make  no  longer  a  renewed  image  in  man  ;  I  will 
not  restore  what  they  have  broken  and  destroyed  ;  but  I  will 
send   My   Eternal  Son.      He,  the  reality,   whom    no   evil    can 


5i.6  The  Blessed  EucJtanst. 

touch,  whom  no  temptation  can  conquer — I  will  put  Him  into 
man  ;  and  I  shall  behold,  no  longer  the  fallen  man,  but  I  shall 
behold,  in  the  redeemed  man,  Myself  restored  in  the  person  of 
Jesus  Christ."  Oh,  my  beloved  brethren  !  does  not  the  infinite 
mercy — the  all-extending,  all-grasping  love  of  God — come  in 
here  ?  He  might,  in  His  designs  of  mercy,  have  restored  His 
broken  image  in  man ;  He  might  have  given  man  the  power  of 
repentance.  He  might,  in  the  largeness  of  His  mercy,  wipe 
away  sin,  undo  that  most  fatal  work,  and  give  back  to  man,  in 
the  unclouded  intelligence,  and  in  the  pure  heart,  and  in  the  free 
will,  all  that  man  had  lost  of  the  divine  image  by  sin.  He 
might  have  done  this  without  at  all  descending  Himself;  with- 
out at  all  coming  down  from  the  throne  of  His  greatness  and 
uncreated  majesty  and  glory.  But  no  !  God  resolves  to  do 
more  for  the  reparation  of  man  than  man  had  ever  done  in  the 
ruin  of  himself  by  sin.  God  resolves  to  send  His  only  begotten 
Son,  who,  incarnate  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  of  the  Virgin 
Mary,  was  made  man.  The  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  born  of  the 
Virgin  Mary;  an  infant  wails  upon  His  mother's  bosom  ;  an 
Infinite  God,  looking  down  from  Heaven,  beholds  not  only  His 
own  image  in  man,  but  beholds  Himself  in  Him,  His  only 
begotten,  co-equal,  and  consubstantial  Son.  Therefore,  He  is  no 
longer  the  image,  but  the  Man-God.  He  is  no  longer  the  like- 
ness of  God,  but  the  reality  of  God — according  to  the  Scrip- 
tures of  old  :  "  I  have  said  ye  are  gods,  and  all  of  you  the  sons 
of  the  Most  High." 

God  made  us  to  be  His  servants.  When  man  refused  to  be  a 
servant,  God,  in  His  mercy,  lifted  him  up,  and  made  him  a  son. 
Ii.stcad  of  taking  the  children  of  men  and  binding  us  together, 
as  a  bundle  of  fagots,  and  flinging  us  into  hell,  and  in  His 
greatness  and  justice  forgetting  us  all — instead  of  doing  this, 
when  God  saw  that  we  were  fallen,  and  that  not  even  His  image 
remained  in  man,  in  the  destruction  of  grace,  and  in  the  partial 
destruction  of  the  perfection  of  his  nature — He  sent  His  only 
begotten  Son  :  so  that  the  creature,  instead  of  being  punished 
by  eternal  ruin  and  banishment,  is  raised,  by  redemption,  and 
made  a  son  of  God.  "  To  those  who  received  Him,  He  gave 
the  power  to  become  the  sons  of  God."  Can  you  comprehend 
this  mercy?  Do  you  ever  reflect  upon  it?  I  sinned  in  Adam. 
Sinning  thus  in  Adam,  I  deserved  to  be  cast  away  from  God, 


The  Blessed  Eucharist.  507 

and  never  see  His  face  again.  I  sinned  in  Adam.  Sinning 
thus,  I  lost  all  that  God  gave  me  of  grace,  and  a  great  deal  that 
He  gave  me  of  nature  Instead  of  flinging  me  aside,  Almighty 
God  comes  down  from  heaven,  becomes  my  brother  ;  and  says — 
"  Brother,  all  that  I  am  in  heaven — the  Son  of  God — I  am 
willing  to  make  you  by  adoption.  My  Father  is  willing  to  take 
you  in  as  my  younger  brother.  My  Father  is  willing  to 
acknowledge  that  all  I  am  by  nature  you  are  by  the  grace  of 
adoption."  So,  in  the  work  of  redemption — in  the  second  de- 
sign of  God — we  rise  to  the  grandeur  and  dignity  of  a  more 
sublime  position  than  in  Adam.  We  become  the  younger 
brethren  of  God  Himself.  We  become  members  of  the  house- 
hold and  of  the  family  of  Jesus  Christ. 

But,  you  will  say  to  me,  what  connection  has  this  with  the 
Blessed  Eucharist  ?  You  engage  to  show  us  that  the  designs 
of  God  were  fulfilled  in  the  Real  Presence.  You  speak  of  the 
design  of  creation — of  the  design  of  redemption  ;  but  what 
have  these  two  designs  to  do  with  the  institution  of  the  Blessed 
Sacrament  ?  the  transubstantiation  of  Christ  upon  the  altar  ? 
It  has  this :  The  first  design  of  creation  was  intended  by  the 
Almighty  God  to  be,  that  man,  preserving  the  graces  in  which 
he  was  created — preserving  the  image  in  which  he  was  made 
— should  remain  faithful  to  God,  free  from  sin,  the  conqueror  of 
his  own  passions,  and  of  every  temptation  that  could  come 
upon  him  ;  and  so,  living  in  the  light  of  purity,  in  the  fervor 
of  love,  in  the  strength  of  freedom,  that  he  might  journey  on 
through  happiness  and  peace  upon  the  earth,  until  he  attained 
to  the  fulfillment  of  his  perfection,  and  laid  hold  of  the  eternal 
crown  of  glory.  This  was  the  design  of  God.  This  was  marred 
by  sin.  Man  sinned ;  and  the  design  of  God  could  no  longer 
be  fulfilled  ;  he  let  evil  into  his  soul ;  he  destroyed  the  in- 
tegrity of  his  nature  ;  he  violated  the  virginity  of  his  soul ;  he 
came  to  the  knowledge  of  evil  ;  and,  with  the  knowledge,  he 
came  to  the  love  of  evil.  Understand  this  well  ;  it  is  a  deep 
thought  ;  it  enters  into  the  designs  of  God.  Every  individual 
man  born  into  this  world  was  born  a  sinner.  Defilement  was 
upon  him  :  the  seeds  of  future  evil  were  in  him.  All  that  was 
necessary  for  him  was  to  let  the  infant  grow  into  a  youth  ;  and, 
by  the  corruption  of  his  nature,  he  became  an  individual  sinner, 
because  the  root  of  evil  was   in  him.     The  seeds  of  corruption 


jo8  The  Blessed  Eucharist. 

were  implanted  in  him  his  bbod  was  impure  and  defiled.  All 
that  was  necessary  was  the  dawn  of  reason  and  the  awakening 
of  passion.  The  former  made  him  an  infidel ;  the  latter  made 
him  a  debauched,  licentious,  and  impure  sinner.  This  was  the 
consequence  of  Adam's  sin.  Therefore,  my  dearly  beloved,  it 
was  not  only  our  nature  that  sinned  in  Adam,  but  every  indi- 
vidual of  our  nature  sinned  in  him ;  save  and  except  the  Blessed 
Virgin  Mary.  Put  her  aside,  and  at  once  the  whole  race  of 
human  beings  are  individual  sinners  in  Adam — not  actual  sin- 
ners, yet  individually  tainted  by  sin.  This,  to  be  sure,  is  one  of 
those  things  that  people  overlook.  They  do  not  understand 
that  the  curse  of  Adam  came  down  to  each  and  every  one  of  us 
— this  sin  of  Adam,  which  was  written  upon  our  foreheads  in 
characters  of  defilement.  When  it  was  a  question  of  remedy- 
ing that  evil,  it  was  necessary  that  the  Almighty  God  should 
exercise  His  mercy  individually  upon  each  and  every  one  of  us. 
Two  things,  therefore,  were  tainted  by  the  sin  of  Adam — the 
nature  and  the  individual.  The  nature,  common  to  all,  was 
tainted ;  man's  nature  was  broken  ;  man's  nature  was  cor- 
rupted ;  that  which  was  common  to  us  all — the  universal  nature 
— was  defiled  and  injured  by  Adam's  sin  ;  and  in  that  defilement 
and  injury  every  single  individual  child  of  Adam  participated 
so  that  every  one  of  us,  personally  and  individually,  was  defiled 
in  our  first  parent.  Now,  it  follows  from  this,  that  when  the 
Almighty  God,  in  His  second  design  of  mercy — namely,  the  re- 
demption— when  He  resolved  to  undo  all  the  evil  that  Adam 
had  done — when  He  resolved  to  bind  up  and  heal  the  wound  that 
Adam  had  made — it  was  necessary  that  God  should  take  thought 
for  the  nature  that  was  corrupted,  and  for  the  individuals  that  had 
fallen  in  Adam.  If  He  had  taken  thought  only  for  the  nature, 
it  would  not  be  sufficient  for  us  ;  for  our  nature  may  be  restored, 
and,  unless  that  restoring  power  come  home  to  us,  we,  our- 
selves, may  remain  in  our  misery.  God  provided  a  remedy  for 
the  nature — the  universal  nature.  In  the  incarnation  He  sent 
His  own  divine  son,  who  took  our  nature — our  human  nature 
— who  took  a  human  body,  a  human  soul,  human  feelings,  a 
human  heart,  a  human  mind,  human  intellect,  human  will — 
everything  that  belonged  to  the  nature  of  man,  Chtist.  our 
Lord,  took:  but  he  did  not  take  the  individual.  Mark  it  well ! 
You  Catholic^  ought  to  know   the    theology  of   your  divine 


The  Blessed  Eucharist*  509 

religion — mark  it  well.  Christ,  our  Lord,  took  everything  that 
was  in  man,  except  the  individuality — personality.  That  He 
did  not  touch.  He  took  our  nature,  and  absorbed  it  into  His  own 
person  ;  but  He  never  took  a  human  person.  No  man  could  say 
of  our  Lord,  pointing  to  Him  :  "  He  is  an  individual  man." 
No!  He  was  a  divine  man.  When  he  spoke,  His  words 
were  those  not  of  man,  but  of  God ;  because  the  person 
who  spoke  was  divine.  If  He  suffered,  it  was  the  suffer- 
ing, not  of  man,  but  of  God ;  because  the  person  was 
divine. 

This  was  necessary ;  because,  unless  the  Divine  Person 
— that  is  to  say,  God — consented  to  suffer  and  to  die,  the  sin 
of  man's  nature  could  never  have  been  wiped  out.  When, 
therefore,  the  eternal  Father,  in  His  love  for  mankind,  sent 
His  co-eternal  Son  upon  the  earth,  He,  in  that  act  of  Incarna- 
tion of  the  Second  Person  of  the  Blessed  Trinity,  provided  a 
remedy  for  the  evil  of  Adam's  nature ;  for  the  human  nature 
that  was  spoiled.  Again  I  assert  that  Christ,  our  Lord,  never 
took  the  human  personality  ;  that  He  left  the  individuality  of 
every  man  to  himself ;  that  He  did  not  take  the  individuality 
or  personality  of  the  man,  but  only  the  nature.  In  order  to 
remedy  the  nature  it  was  necessary,  in  the  designs  of  God,  that 
God  should  unite  Himself  with  that  nature.  Mark  this:  that 
God  should  unite  Himself  with  man's  nature  was  necessary  in 
the  designs  of  God,  in  order  that  man's  nature  might  be  puri- 
fied and  restored.  Was  this  necessary  to  the  designs  of  God  ? 
Absolutely  necessary.  The  Virgin"  Mary — on  that  day  in 
Nazareth,  when  Gabriel  stood  before  her — represented  the 
human  race.  She  represented  human  nature,  in  her  alone  un- 
fallen  ;  and  to  that  all-pure,  and  unfallen  one,  the  angel  said : 
u  Mary,  a  child  shall  be  born  to  you,  and  he  shall  be  called  the 
son  of  the  Most  High  God."  Mary  paused ;  and,  until  Mary, 
of  her  own  free  will,  answered  :  "  Behold  the  handmaid  of  God  , 
be  this  thing  done  unto  me  according  to  Thy  word  ;  "  until 
Mary  said  that  word,  the  mystery  of  the  Incarnation  wa?  rcrpend- 
ed,  and  man's  redemption  was  left  hanging  upon  the  will  of  one 
woman.  But  when  Mary  said  the  word,  human  nature,  distinct 
from  man's  personality,  was  assumed  by  God.  If  Almighty 
God  had  not  consented  to  unite  Himself  with  our  nature,  that 
nature  never  could  have  been  redeemed.     But  thus  we  see  that 


510  The  Blessed  Eucharist. 

one  great  portion  of  Adam's  evil  was  remedied  in  the  In- 
carnation— namely,  that  our  nature  was  purified. 

But  what  about  the  individual  ?  It  is  not  so  much  the  purifica- 
tion of  my  nature — our  common  nature — that  concerns  me.  I  am 
an  individual  man — the  son  of  my  mother ;  I  am  a  human  person  ; 
Christ,  our  Lord,  had  nothing  to-say  to  the  human  person  in  the 
Incarnation.  How,  then,  am  I,  a  human  person,  to  enter  into  the 
graces  and  purity  of  God  ?  Oh,  behold,  my  brethren,  how  the 
two  previous  designs  culminate !  Christ,  our  Lord,  multiplied 
Himself.  Christ,  our  Lord,  changed  bread  and  wine  into  His 
own  divine  body  and  blood.  Christ,  our  Lord,  made  Himself 
present  in  the  form  of  man's  food.  That  food  is  broken.  Every 
child  that  cries  for  that  divine  bread  shall  have  it.  That  human 
individual,  that  personal  creature,  is  united  to  God,  and  the  in- 
dividual is  sanctified  as  the  nature  was  sanctified.  The  nature 
could  not  be  redeemed  or  sanctified  except  by  union  with  God  ; 
the  individual  is  sanctified  by  the  same  means — union  with  God 
in  the  Blessed  Eucharist.  Thus,  then,  we  see  how  the  design  of 
creation — spoiled  in  Adam — spoiled  not  only  in  the  nature  but 
in  the  individual,  is  made  perfect  in  Jesus  Christ,  as  far  as  re- 
gards the  mystery  of  the  Incarnation.  Well,  therefore,  He  says: 
"  Unless  you  eat  of  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  Man,  and  drink  His 
blood,  you  shall  not  have  life  in  you."  He  was  speaking  to  the 
individual.  He  did  not  say,  "You  cannot  have  life  in  your 
nature."  He  put  life  into  human  nature  by  taking  that  nature 
upon  Himself.  There  was  life  there  already — life  eternal — in 
the  person  of  Jesus  Christ.  But  He  was  speaking  to  individuals ; 
and  He  said  to  them,  "  Unless  you  bring  Me  home  unto  your- 
selves, individually,  you  cannot  have  life  in  you  ;  for  I  am  the 
life  ;  life  indeed  ;  life  eternal,  that  came  down  from  heaven  ;  and 
unless  you  eat  of  My  flesh,  and  drink  of  My  blood,  you  cannot 
have  life  in  you.  But  if  you  do  this,  if  you  eat  of  this  flesh,  and 
drink  of  this  blood,  then  you  shall  abide  in  Me,  and  I  in  you." 

Behold,  therefore,  dearly  beloved,  how  the  mystery  of  the  In- 
carnation, affecting,  as  it  did,  our  nature,  is  brought  home  in  its 
wonderful  expansion  to  each  human  person  in  the  Holy  Com- 
munion. Oh,  how  sad  and  terrible,  how  dreadful  is  the  thought, 
that  the  devil  has  succeeded  the  second  time  in  destroying  us ! 
First,  he  destroyed  our  nature  in  Adam ;  now,  he  succeeds  in 
destroying  the  person  in  heresy,  in  Protestantism.     He  came 


Tfu  Blessed  Eucharist.  5 1 1 

and  whispered,  "  Christ  is  not  in  the  Blessed  Eucharist !  lie  is 
not  there  !  "  He  cut  off— by  that  denial  of  Protestantism  of  the 
Real  Presence — the  last  great  design  of  God,  in  which  the  crea 
tion  and  the  redemption  were  to  be  made  perfect  in  their 
remedy,  and  brought  home  to  every  individual  man.  Suppose, 
my  children,  that  some  dreadful  epidemic  came  in  amongst  you 
— some  fearful  eruption  of  Asiatic  cholera — that  a  sailor  landed 
from  a  ship  in  New  York,  with  the  cholera,  and  from  him  it 
spread  through  the  city ;  we  would  look  upon  that  man  as  the 
origin  of  the  evil,  because  he  brought  it,  as  Adam  brought  evil, 
and  sin,  and  misery  into  this  world.  Then,  suppose  some  great 
physician  arose — some  mighty  sage — and  said  he  held  in  his 
hand  a  great  remedy ;  said  to  the  whole  city  of  New  York, 
"  Behold,  I  am  come  from  a  foreign  land,  where  we  have  never 
known  disease  or  complaint,  with  this  sovereign  remedy  in  my 
hand.  No  one  that  partakes  of  this  shall  ever  suffer  from  this 
hideous  disease  !  "  Would  we  not  take  the  remedy  out  of  his 
hands  ?  Would  we  not  eat  of  that  medicine,  which  is  life  out  of 
death  to  us  ?  So,  Christ,  our  Lord,  represents  that  great  phy- 
sician, coming  with  a  sovereign  remedy  in  His  hand,  and  with 
that  remedy  we  will  remedy  our  nature  in  His  Incarnation. 
Then  he  says,  "  I  am  come  from  a  foreign  land  that  has  never 
known  disease  or  death.  I  came  from  heaven.  I  bring  the 
remedy  against  Adam's  corruption  and  Adam's  sin.  I  am  the 
head  of  your  nature  ;  now  I  am  one  with  you.  So  I  say  to  you 
all :  Whoever  wishes  to  escape  this  dire  disease,  must  partake 
of  this  miraculous  food.  It  is  the  self-same  food  brought  down 
to  elevate  your  nature,  that  is  My  own  self."  What  would  you 
think  of  a  man  that  said,  "  Don't  go  near  Him !  don't  take  that 
food  from  His  hand  !  don't  believe  in  Him  !  " — thus  clinging  to 
disease  and  death.  Why,  you  see  clearly,  my  brethren,  as  we, 
Catholics,  believe  and  know,  that  the  Almighty  God  has  suf- 
ficiently revealed  in  His  designs,  that  it  is  absolutely  necessary 
for  every  man,  who  wishes  to  be  saved  and  sanctified,  to  come 
into  personal  contact  with  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  by  opering 
his  mouth  and  receiving  the  body  and  blood,  soul  and  divinity, 
of  the  Lord   in  the  Holy  Communion. 

Such  is  the  design  of  God.  Now  it  remains  for  us  to  see 
whether  that  which  so  completely  fulfills  the  designs  of  God, 
fulfills  also  the  wants  of  man.     Oh  !   my  brethren,  before  we 


512  The  Blessed  Eucharist. 

leave  these  designs,  let  us  consider  how  magnificent  they  are 
The  Father  loved  man.  First,  in  the  beginning,  when,  as  God, 
He  loved  His  own  image.  What  great  love  have  you  for  the 
likeness  of  your  own  face  in  the  looking-glass  ?  Every  feature 
is  there,  every  expression  is  there,  but  it  is  only  an  image.  What 
love  would  a  man  have  for  his  own  portrait,  even  though  designed 
by  a  master-hand  ?  Every  tint  and  beauty  of  color  may  be  there, 
every  delicate  trait  most  true  to  nature,  and  to  the  person 
represented.  But,  after  all,  it  is  only  a  piece  of  canvas,  over- 
laid with  a  little  paint,  skillfully  arranged  ;  only  an  image.  God, 
in  the  second  design,  beholds  in  man  His  own  adorable  and  be- 
loved Son  ;  the  Eternal  Word,  that  from  all  eternity  rested  in 
the  Father's  bosom  ;  the  very  figure  of  His  substance,  and  the 
splendor  of  His  glory,  equal  to  Him  in  all  things,  knowing  and 
loving  Him,  and  loved  by  Him  with  a  substantial  love,  which 
is  the  Third  Person  of  the  Blessed  Trinity — the-  Holy  Ghost. 
He  came  down  from  heaven,  became  man ;  and  the  Eternal 
Father  no  longer  looks  upon  man  as  a  man  would  look  upon 
his  own  picture,  as  an  image.  He  looks  down  as  a  loving 
father  of  a  family  looks  down  on  the  face  of  his  eldest  son. 
How  different  the  love  of  a  man  is  for  his  own  image,  reflected 
in  the  mirror,  or  perpetuated  by  the  painter's  hand,  cold,  life- 
less, inanimate,  and  his  own  image  seen  in  every  feature,  in 
every  lineament  of  his  child ;  the  child  of  his  own  manly  love ; 
the  child  growing  and  displaying  every  perfection,  and  return- 
ing the  love  of  the  father;  the  child  surrounding  all  the  graces 
of  ordinary  infancy  with  a  peculiar  grace  and  shining  beauty 
in  his  father's  eyes,  until  he  draws  every  chord  of  that  father's 
heart,  entwining  around  him  so  closely,  that  if  the  child  should 
die,  or  disappear,  the  father  would  seem  to  have  lost  every  pur- 
pose of  life,  and  be  ready  to  lie  down  and  die  upon  the  grave 
of  his  first-born!  So  the  Almighty  and  Eternal  God,  looking 
down  in  the  second  design  of  His  redemption,  beheld  one  who 
was  not  a  human  person,  but  the  Second  Divine  Person  of  the 
adorable  Trinity ;  not  merely  human,  though  truly  human  ; 
but  man  and  God  united  in  one.  And  that  union  consummated 
not  in  man,  not  in  the  human  person,  but  in  God,  the  divine 
person  ;  and  just  as  that  image  of  Jesus  Christ  so  captivated 
the  Father's  love,  that  twice  He  rent  the  heavens  miraculously, 
and  sent  down  His  voice — once,  when  Christ  was  standing  in 


The  Blessed  Eucharist  5 1 3 

the  Jordan,  and,  another  time,  when    He  was   transfigured  on 

Mount  Tabor — on  both  occasions,  the  miraculous  voice 
God  could  no  longer  contain  His  love — saying,  "  This  is  My 
beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased  ;  hear  ye  Him!  "  Th  ,1 
image  so  captivated  the  Father's  love  that  he  wished  to  repro- 
duce it  in  all  the  children  of  men — that  He  wished  to  multiply 
it.  It  was  so  fair,  so  beautiful,  that  the  Eternal  Father,  when- 
ever He  cast  His  eyes  upon  the  earth,  wished  to  see  it  multi- 
plied in  every  man  personally.  He  wished  to  see  every  man 
another  Jesus  Christ,  His  Son.  He  wished  to  be  able  to  say  to 
you  and  to  me,  "  He  is  also  my  beloved  child,  in  whom  I  am 
well  pleased."  In  order  to  do  this  His  divine  Son  multiplied 
Himself,  and  remained  upon  earth — broke,  as  it  were,  His  ex- 
istence, His  perfect  existence,  His  inseparable  existence — 
broke  it ;  separated  it  into  a  thousand  forms ;  became  present 
upon  your  lips  and  mine,  and  on  those  of  the  little  child  that 
comes  up  to  this  altar;  so  that  the  mere  image  of  God  re- 
ceives the  Holy  Communion,  goes  down  from  this  altar,  and  the 
Father  of  heaven  looks  down,  and  says,  "  Behold,  My  beloved 
Son,  Jesus  Christ,  is  there  !  "  The  angel  guardian  that  conducts 
the  child  to  the  altar,  prostrates  himself  before  the  figure  of  that 
child  as  he  returns  from  the  altar  again.  For  now  he  is  indeed 
a  human  person ;  but  God  is  in  him. 

And  this  is  the  supreme  want  of  man.  That  which  is  the 
fulfillment  of  the  divine  design  is  the  supreme  want.  What  is 
that  we  want,  Christian  believers  as  you  are  ? — tell  me  your 
great  want  in  this  world  !  Every  man  has  his  own  wants  and 
hopes  and  desires  and  purposes  of  life.  What  is  it  that  you 
want  ?  What  do  we  aspire  to  ?  Tell  me.  One  man  says : 
"  Well,  I  hope  to  become  a  wealthy  man ;  to  be  the  founder  of 
a  grand  family  in  the  land."  Do  your  hopes  stop  here,  ray 
friend  ?  The  grand  family  you  found  will  follow  you  to  the 
grave.  Have  you  brought  no  hopes  with  you  ?  Another  says: 
"  I  hope  to  obtain  some  distinguished  position,  the  first  position 
in  the  land."  I  suppose  you  may  one  day  be  President  of  the 
United  States.  But  the  day  will  come  when  they  will  carry  the 
President,  and  consign  him  also  to  his  grave.  What  is  your 
hope  and  mine?  Oh,  friends  and  brethren!  is  it  not  my  hope 
to  bring  out  in  my  soul  here  by  grace,  and  hereafter  by  glory, 
the  image  of  the  Eternal  God,  which  is  stamped  upon  it?     Mv 


5 1 4  The  Blessed  Eucharist. 

hope  is  to  live  in  the  light  of  divine  grace,  to  walk  in  the  beam 
ing  of  divine  purity.  My  hope  is  to  keep  my  will  unfettered, 
that  freely  I  may  devote  it  to  the  service  of  my  God.  My  hope 
is  to  rise  by  divine  help  into  all  the  majesty  of  Christian  holi- 
ness. And  the  majesty  and  the  glory  of  the  Christian  man  lies 
here — that  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  o'  God,  may  be  brought  out  in 
him.  No  great  one  in  heaven,  but  the  greatest  of  all — the 
Eternal  God  and  man,  Jesus  Christ.  He  stamped  the  God  upon 
our  humanity  in  the  Incarnation  ;  He  stamped  the  God  upon 
our  nature;  and  that  stamp  He  left  on  our  nature;  and  we 
must  stamp  it  upon  our  person.  And  the  true  want  of  every 
Christian  man,  and  the  true  purpose  of  his  existence,  is  to  bring 
out  the  Christ  that  is  in  him,  and  to  become  a  son  of  God. 
Nothing  short  of  this.  If  we  fail  in  this,  then  all  our  hopes 
perish  from  us.  If  we  fail  in  this,  it  is  in  vain  that  we  have 
achieved  every  other  purpose  of  life  ;  it  is  in  vain  that  we  have 
written  our  names,  even  in  letters  of  gold,  upon  the  foremost 
page  of  our  country's  history  ;  it  is  in  vain  that  we  have  left  a 
name  to  other  times,  built  up  upon  the  solid  foundation  of  every 
higher  quality  that  is  enshrined  in  the  temple  of  man's  immor- 
tality ;  it  is  in  vain  that  we  have  accumulated  all  the  world's  riches. 
If  we  fail  to  bring  out  the  Christ  that  is  in  us,  then  we  are,  of 
all  men,  the  most  miserable  ;  because  we  have  failed  in  realizing 
the  only  true  hope,  the  only  true  want  of  the  Christian  man. 
What  follows  ?  Says  the  Saviour— "  If  a  man  gain  the  whole 
world  " — the  world's  places,  the  world's  honors — "  and  lose  his 
own  soul,  what  profiteth  it  him  ?  "  And  the  loss  of  his  soul  is 
effected  in  man  by  neglecting  to  bring  Christ  out  in  him.  For  it 
is  written — our  vocation,  our  calling,  our  justification — that  is  to 
say,  our  sanctification,  our  ultimate  glory — all  depend  upon  one 
thing — making  ourselves,  by  divine  grace,  conformable  to  Jesus 
Christ.  For  God  foreknew  and  predestinated  that  we  might  be 
-nade  like  to  the  image  of  Jesus  Christ :  and  "  those  whom  He 
called  He  justified,  and  those  whom  He  justified  He  glorified." 
This  being  the  want  of  man,  how  is  it  to  be  supplied?  Can 
man  alone  supply  the  want  ?  No !  There  are  three  enemies 
that  stand  before  us.  Powerful  and  dreadful  are  each  and  every 
one  of  these  enemies,  saying  to  us :  "I  am  come  to  destroy  the 
Christ  in  you  !  "  The  first  of  these  is  the  world — the  world 
with  its  evil  maxims ;  the  world  with  its  pride,  with  its  avarice, 


The  Blessed  Eucharist.  5  1 ; 

with  all  its  false  ideas ;  the  world  with  its  newspapers  and  peri- 
odicals, with  all  its  theories  not  stopping  short  of  theorizing 
upon  God  ; — the  world  that  tells  us  its  influence  is  elevating, 
although  the  Almighty  God  tells  us  it  is  not ;  and  that  mocking 
buffoonery  of  religion,  dissolving  the  matrimonial  tie,  the  most 
sacred  of  all  bonds  the  world,  flooded  with  impurity,  evil  ex- 
amples, and  its  evil  maxims  and  principles,  comes  before  the 
Christian  man,  hoping  to  be  made  like  unto  Jesus  Christ,  and 
says  :  "  I  tell  you  you  must  hot  be  a  Christian.  I  will  surround 
you  by  my  influence  ;  I  will  beset  you  with  evil  examples  ;  I 
will  pollute  the  moral  atmosphere  you  live  in  with  my  false 
principles,  and  work  the  Christ  out  of  you  !  "  Will  any  man  be 
able,  of  his  own  power,  to  resist  this  influence  and  conquer  it  ? 
Ah !  it  has  captivated  and  enslaved  the  best  intellects  of  our 
age  ;  the  grandest  minds  of  our  age  have  been  utterly  debauched 
by  worldly  principles  ;  for  we  know  the  very  best  intelligences 
of  our  age,  at  this  moment,  are  writing  the  sheerest  nonsense  in 
the  matter  of  religion — these  men  who  write  articles  in  the  news- 
papers upon  commercial  subjects  with  so  much  wisdom — these 
men  whose  wits  are  keen  as  a  razor  in  philosophical  speculation 
— quick  to  perceive  a  flaw  in  an  argument — when  these  men 
come  to  write  about  religion,  they  are  simply  fools — as  you  will 
see  in  looking  at  any  of  the  leading  newspapers  of  New  York  to- 
morrow morning — what  this  man  and  that  man  said  in  the  various 
conventicles  and  churches  to-day  ; — you  will  find  a  Quaker  stand- 
ing up — a  holy  man — humming,  hawing,  and  rocking  himself, 
lifting  up  his  languid  eyes  to  heaven  ;  and  then,  after  a  long 
pause,  you  will  find  him  denying  the  Divinity  of  Jesus  Christ, 
and  declaring  that  He  was  not  the  Son  of  God  at  all!  This 
happened  last  Sunday  in  New  York.  You  will  find  another 
man  coming  out  with  the  theory  and  the  belief  that  man  never 
fell ;  and,  therefore,  does  not  need  any  remedy.  This — in  the 
face  of  the  moral  and  social  corruption  and  guiltiness  of  our 
age,  that  is  revolting  to  the  eyes  of  God  and  man  !  Thus  it  is 
the  world  blinds  the  very  best  intellects  and  the  shrewdest  and 
strongest  minds".  And  do  you  expect  to  resist  this  ?  No  !  You 
cannot  do  it.  You  must  say  with  St.  Paul:  "Of  myself  I  can 
do  nothing;  but  I  can  do  all  things  in  Him."  In  Him  we  can 
do  all  things.     He  is  here  for  you  and  me. 

The  next  great  enemy  is  the  flesh — the  domestic  enemy.    The 


5 1 6  The  Blessed  Eucharist. 

blood  in  our  veins,  the  passions  and  the  senses  of  our  bodies, 
rise  up  against  us  to  enslave  us,  and  say:  "You  must  not  be- 
come like  to  the  Son  of  God  !  The  Son  of  God  was  infinite  purity. 
I  will  not  allow  you  to  possess  your  soul  in  purity  !  I  will  not 
allow  you  to  develop  the  spiritual  existence  that  is  within  you  ; 
you  must  follow  the  dictates  of  your  passions  ;  you  must  become 
a  drunkard,  a  licentious  and  impure  man  !  I  will  fill  that  eye 
with  the  flaming,  lustful  glances  of  desire  ;  I  will  make  the 
absorbing  desire  for  everything  base  throb  in  your  veins,  till  it 
becomes  a  necessity  of  your  nature."  Thus  says  the  flesh.-  Can 
we  conquer  it?  The  greatest  and  the  grandest  of  earth's  sons 
have  been  the  meanest  slaves  to  their  own  passions.  The  grand- 
est names  upon  the  rolls  of  history — the  greatest  heroes — the 
greatest  philosophers — have  all  attached  to  them — when  we  turn 
the  leaves  of  history  and  look  at  their  lives — the  foul  stain  of 
their  impurity,  running  through  their  lives  and  covering  all  their 
existence  with  the  vilest  of  all  earthly  passions.  No  !  We  can- 
not conquer  this  flesh  of  ours,  but  in  Him — the  Lord  our  God 
— who  of  old  bound  up  the  demon  and  cast  him  forth  into  the 
desert  of  Ethiopia.  So  can  we  bind,  with  Him,  these  unruly 
passions,  and  stem  the  flood  of  desire  in  our  corrupt  and  polluted 
natures,  and  deny  ourselves  for  Him,  who  will  enable,  whilst  He 
commands  us  to  do  it  ;  and  to  cast  forth  the  demon  into  the 
outer  world  that  is  so  fitted  for  him. 

Finally,  comes  the  pride  of  life,  the  third  enemy.  Ambition 
the  self-reliance,  the  pride  of  man,  the  pride  that  refuses  to  be 
dictated  to.  "  Why" — that  pride  says — "  Why  should  I  submit 
to  the  commands  of  religion?  Why,  it  tells  me  I  should  go  like 
a  little  child  and  prepare  myself  and  go  to  confession  !  Why,  it 
tells  me  I  should  go  through  these  devotions  that  are  only  fit 
for  women  and  nuns  !  Why  should  I  fast  and  suffer  hunger  ? 
I  have  all  things  around  me.  Don't  I  find  such  and  such  texts 
in  Scripture  that  tell  me  'All  things  are  good'?  Why  shall  I 
abstain  from  anything?  Why  should  I  not  have  my  own  way, 
and  reject  all  authority,  human  and  divine?  and,  first  of  all,  the 
law  that  man  must  bear  the  obedience,  humility,  and  mortifica- 
tion of  Jesus  Christ  in  him  if  he  would  be  saved  ?  "  Will  you  be 
able  to  contend  against  this  pride  ?  this  pride  that  carries  away 
the  best  and  highest  of  earth's  children  ?  No  !  You  will  never 
be  able  to  contend  against  it,  to  keep  the  humility  of  your  in- 


The  Blessed  EucJuirist.  517 

tellect,  the  fidelity  of  your  faith,  unless  you  feed  upon  Him  who 
is  the  source  of  all  virtue  and  all  life.  And  thus,  it  is  only  by 
the  same  means  that  Christ  has  effected  in  the  Incarnation — by 
God  uniting  Himself  in  our  nature  in  Christ — that  he  also  effects 
our  sanctification  in  the  Holy  Communion.  Therefore,  it  accom- 
plishes at  once  all  the  designs  of  God. 

I  have  done  my  duty.  I  have  finished  my  theme.  Nothing 
remains  for  me  but  to  remind  the  Catholics  who  are  here,  the 
Catholics  of  this  city,  the  Catholic  men  who  were  nourished  in 
the  Catholic  faith  and  derived  that  faith  from  Catholic — and 
many  amongst  them  from  Irish — mothers — to  remind  you  that, 
for  three  hundred  years  of  persecution  and  death,  it  was  the 
Holy  Communion,  and  Ireland's  devotion  to  it,  that  kept  the 
faith  alive  in  our  fathers.  They  resisted  that  pride  of  life.  The 
world  came  and  declared  to  them  that  they  should  give  up  their 
faith.  They  said  no,  against  the  whole  world.  They  kept  their 
faith,  through  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  Holy  Communion.  They  re- 
sisted their  passions  and  restrained  them ;  so  that  Ireland's 
purity,  in  the  purity  of  her  daughters  and  the  manliness  of  her 
sons — (a  virtue  that  always  accompanies  personal  purity  and 
purity  of  race) — was  unexcelled.  They  resisted,  even  when  titles 
and  honors  were  ready  to  be  showered  upon  them.  And  when 
high  intellect  was  challenged  to  disprove  the  faith  in  which  they 
believed,  they  bowed  down  before  their  time-honored  altars  ; 
and  Ireland's  faith  in  her  religion  was  never  stronger  than  in  the 
days  when  she  suffered  most  for  it.  I  say  to  you,  Catholics  of 
New  York,  that  no  man  can  be  saved  from  the  world  around 
him,  the  flesh  within,  and  the  devil  that  is  beneath  him,  unless 
Jesus  Christ  be  with  him.  I  tell  you,  Catholics  of  New  York, 
men  of  New  York,  who  only  go  once  a  year  to  Holy  Commu- 
nion— that  it  would  be  almost  better  for  you  if  you  did  not  know 
the  truth.  If  you  want  to  know  the  explanation  of  your  sins, 
of  the  drunkenness  around  you,  of  the  impurity  and  savage 
assaults  committed,  of  all  the  quick,  hasty  crimes  of  which  our 
Irish  nature  is  more  capable  than  of  the  meaner  and  more  cor- 
rupt crimes,  the  reason  of  it  all  is  this — that  you  are  not  fre- 
quent and  fervent  communicants.  If  you  ask  me  for  a  rule,  I 
find,  although  I  go  to  communion  every  day  of  my  life,  I  have 
enough  to  do  still  to  conquer  my  spiritual  enemies.  And.  if  I, 
a  priest,  have  enough  to  contend  with  to  be  saved  after  receiv- 


5*8  The  Blessed  Eucharist. 

ing  the  Holy  Communion  every  morning,  how  can  you  be  saved? 
If  you  ask  me  for  a  rule  I  will  give  it  in  a  few  words.  I  believe 
every  man  who  wishes  to  have  the  peace  of  Christ,  and  live  in 
His  Christian  holiness,  and  have  Christ  brought  forth  in  him, 
that  man  should  be,  at  least,  a  monthly  communicant. 


V/estbrooK,    ™e 


THE  MONTH  OF  MARY. 


[The  opening  sermon  of  a  course  for  the  month  of  Mary,  delivered  in  the  Churcfc 
»f  St.  Vincent  Ferrer,  New  York,  Wednesday  evening,  May  1st,  1872.] 

E  are  commencing  this  evening  the  devotions  to  the 
Blessed  Virgin,  to  which  the  Church  invites  all  her 
children  during  the  month  of  May.  The  faithful  at  all 
seasons  invoke  the  mercy  of  God  through  the  inter- 
cession of  the  Blessed  Virgin  Mother.  But  more  especially  dur- 
ing this  sweet  month,  the  opening  of  the  beautiful  year,  does 
our  Holy  Mother  invite  our  devout  thoughts  and  prayer  to  the 
mother  of  God,  and  put  before  us  the  Blessed  Virgin's  claims 
and  titles  to  our  veneration  and  love.  Guided  by  this  Catholic 
instinct  and  spirit  we  are  assembled  here  this  evening,  my  dear 
brethren,  and  it  is  my  pleasing  duty  to  endeavor  to  unfold  be- 
fore your  eyes  the  high  designs  of  God  which  were  matured  and 
carried  out  in  Mary.  And  first  of  all  I  have  to  remark  to  you, 
as  I  have  done  more  than  once  before — that  in  every  work  of 
God  we  find  reflected  the  harmony  and  the  order  which  is  the 
infinite  beauty  of  God  Himself.  The  nearer  any  work  of  His 
approaches  to  Him  in  excellence,  in  usefulness,  in  necessity,  the 
more  does  that  work  reflect  the  beauty  and  harmony  of  God 
who  created  it.  Now,  dearly  beloved,  the  highest  work  that 
ever  God  made — that  it  ever  entered  into  His  mind  to  con- 
ceive—or that  He  ever  executed  by  His  omnipotence — was  the 
sacred  humanity,  or  the  human  nature  of  Jesus  Christ ;  and, 
next  to  Him  in  grandeur,  in  sanctity,  in  necessity,  is  the  institu- 
tion of  or  the  creation  of  the  Holy  Catholic  Church  of  God. 
When,  therefore,  we  come,  as  pious  children  of  the  Church,  to 
examine  her  doctrines,  to  meditate  upon  her  precepts,  to  analyze 
her  devotions,  we  naturally  find  ourselves  at  once  in  the  king- 


j20  The  Month  of  Mary. 

dom  of  perfect  harmony  and  order.  Everything  in  the  Church's 
teaching  harmonizes  with  the  works  of  the  human  intelligence ; 
everything  in  the  Church's  moral  law  harmonizes  with  the  wants 
of  man's  soul.  Everything  in  the  Church's  liturgy,  or  devotions, 
harmonizes  with  man's  imagination  and  sense,  in  so  far  as  that 
imagination  and  sense  help  him  to  a  union  with  God.  And  so, 
everything  in  the  Church's  devotion  harmonizes  with  the  nature 
around  us,  and  within  us,  and  with  that  reflection  of  nature  in 
its  highest  and  most  beautiful  form,  which  is  in  the  spirit  and  in 
the  genius  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary.  I  remember,  once, 
speaking  with  a  very  distinguished  poet — one  of  a  world-wide 
reputation  and  honorable  name — a  name  which  is  a  household 
word  wherever  the  English  language  is  spoken — and  he  said  to 
me :  "  Father,  I  am  not  a  Catholic  ;  yet  I  have  no  keener  pleas- 
ure, or  greater  enjoyment,  than  to  witness  Catholic  ceremonial, 
to  study  Catholic  devotion,  to  investigate  Catholic  doctrines — 
nor  do  I  find,"  he  said,  "  in  all  that  nature  or  the  resources  of 
intellect  open  before  me,  greater  food  for  poetic  and  enthusiastic 
thought  than  that  which  is  suggested  to  me  by  the  Catholic 
Church."  And  so,  it  is  not  without  some  beautiful  reason — 
some  beautiful,  harmonious  reason — that  the  Church  is  able  to 
account  for  every  iota  and  every  tittle  of  her  liturgy  and  of  her 
devotions. 

And,  now,-  we  find  the  Church  upon  this,  the  first  of  May,  call- 
ing all  her  pious  and  spiritual-minded  children,  and  telling  them 
tha£  this  month  is  devoted,  in  an  especial  manner,  to  the  Blessed 
Virgin  Mary.  What  month  is  this,  my  dearly  beloved  ?  It  is 
the  month  in  the  year  when  the  Spring  puts  forth  all  its  life, 
and  all  the  evidences  of  those  hidden  powers  that  lie  latent  in 
this  world  of  ours.  You  have  all  seen  the  face  of  nature  at 
Christmas-time,  during  Lent,  even  at  Easter-time,  this  year — 
and  looking  around  you,  it  seemed  as  if  the  earth  was  never  to 
produce  a  green  blade  of  grass  again.  You  looked  upon  the 
trees  ;  no  leaf  gave  evidence  there  of  life.  All  was  lifeless,  all 
was  barren,  all  was  dried  up.  And  to  a  man  who  opened  his 
eyes  but  yesterday,  without  the  experience  of  past  years  and  of 
past  summers,  it  would  seem  to  him  as  if  it  were  impossible 
that  this  cold,  and  barren,  and  winter-stricken  earth  could  ever 
burst  again  into  the  life,  the  verdure,  the  beauty,  and  the  prom- 
ise of  Spring.     But  the  clouds  rained  down  the  rain  of  heaven 


The  Month  of  Mary.  521 

and  the  sun  shone  forth  with  the  warmth  of  Spring,  and  sud- 
denly all  nature  is  instinct  with  life.  Now,  the  corn-fields  sprout 
and  tell  us  that  in  a  few  months  they  will  teem  with  the  abund- 
ance of  the  harvest.  Now,  the  meadow,  dried  up,  and  burned,  and 
withered,  and  yellow,  and  leafless,  clothes  itself  with  a  green  man- 
tle, robing  hill  and  dale  with  the  beauty  of  nature,  and  refreshing 
the  eye  of  man  and  eve/y  beast  of  the  field  that  feeds  thereon. 
Now,  the  trees  that  seemed  to  be  utterly  dried,  and  sapless,  and 
leafless,  and  motionless,  save  so  far  as  they  swayed  sadly  to  and 
fro  to  every  winter  blast  that  passed  over  them — are  clothed 
with  the  fair  young  buds  of  Spring,  most  delicate  and  delightful 
to  the  eye  and  to  the  heart  of  man,  promising  in  the  little  leaf 
of  to-day  the  ample  spread  and  the  deep  shade  of  the  thick 
summer  foliage  that  is  to  come  upon  them.  Now,  the  birds 
of  the  air,  silent  during  the  winter  months,  begin  their  song. 
The  lark  rises  on  his  wing  to  the  upper  air,  and,  as  he  rises, 
he  pours  out  his  song  in  ether  until  he  fills  the  whole  atmo- 
sphere with  the  thrill  of  his  delicious  harmony.  Now,  every  bud 
expands,  and  every  leaf  opens,  and  every  spray  of  plant  and  tree 
sends  forth  its  Spring-song,  and  hails  with  joy  the  summer,  and 
all  nature  is  instinct  with  life.  How  beautiful  is  the  harmony  of 
our  devotion  and  our  worship — how  delicate,  how  natural,  how 
beautiful  the  idea  of  our  Holy  Mother,  the  Church,  in  selecting 
this  month — this  month  of  promise — this  month  of  Spring — this 
month  of  gladness — of  serene  sky  and  softened  temperature — 
this  month  opening  the  summer,  the  glad  time  of  the  year,  and 
dedicating  it  to  her  who  represents,  indeed,  in  the  order  of 
grace,  the  Spring-time  of  man's  redemption  ;  opening  the  sum- 
mer of  the  sunshine  of  God,  the  first  sign  of  the  purest  life 
that  this  earth  was  able  to  send  forth  under  the  eyes  of  God  and 
man!  Oh,  how  long  and  how  sad  was  the  winter !  The  winter 
of  God's  wrath — the  winter  of  four  thousand  years,  during  which 
the  sunshine  of  God's  favor  was  shut  out  from  this  world  by  the 
thick  clouds  of  man's  sin,  and  of  God's  anger!  How  sad  was 
that  winter  that  seemed  never  to  be  able  to  break  into  the 
genial  spring  of  God's  grace,  and  of  His  holy  favor  and  virtue 
again  !  No  sunbeam  of  divine  truth  illumined  its  darkness.  No 
smiie  of  divine  favor  gladdened  the  face  of  the  spiritual  world 
for  these  four  thousand  years.  The  earth  seemed  dead  and 
accursed,  incapable  of  bringing  forth  a  single  flower  of  promise, 


522  The  Month  of  Mary. 

or  sending  forth  a  single  leaf  of  such  beauty  that  it  might  be  fit 
to  be  culled  by  the  loving  hand  of  God.  But,  when  the  summer- 
time was  about  to  come — when  the  thick  clouds  began  to 
Dart — the  clouds  of  anger,  the  clouds  of  sin — the  cloud  of  the 
curse  was  broken  and  rent  asunder,  and  gave  place  to  the  purer 
cloud  of  mercy  and  of  grace,  that  bowed  down  from  heaven 
overladen  with  the  rain  and  dew  of  God's  redemption, — then 
the  earth  moved  itself  to  life  in  the  sunshine,  and  the  first  flower 
of  hope,  the  first  fair  thing  that  this  earth  produced  for  four 
thousand  years,  in  the  breaking  of  winter,  before  the  summer, 
in  the  promise  of  Spring,  was  the  immaculate  lily,  the  fairest 
flower  that  bloomed  upon  the  root  of  Jesse,  and  in  its  bloom, 
sent  forth  pure  leaves ;  and  so  fragrant  were  they,  that  their 
sweet  odor  penetrated  heaven,  and  moved  the  desires  of  the 
Most  High  God  to  enjoy  them !  according  to  the  word  of  the 
prophet,  "  Send  forth  flowers  as  the  lily,  and  yield  a  sweet  odor, 
and  put  forth  leaves  unto  grace."  So  bright  in  its  opening  was 
this  spiritual  flower — the  first  flower  of  earth — that  even  the  eye 
of  God,  looking  down  upon  it,  could  see  no  speck  or  stain  upon 
the  whiteness  of  its  unfolding  leaves.  "  Thou  art  all  fair,  my  y 
Beloved !  "  He  exclaimed,  "  and  there  is  no  spot  or  stain  upon 
thee."  And  this  flower — this  Spring  flower — this  sacred  plant — 
that  was  to  rear  its  gentle  head,  unfold  its  white  leaves,  and 
show  its  petals  of  purest  gold,  was  Mary,  who  was  destined  from 
all  eternity  to  be  the  mother  of  Jesus  Christ.  She  was  the 
earth's  Spring,  full  of  promise,  full  of  beauty,  full  of  joy ;  she 
was  the  earth's  Spring  that  was  to  be  the  herald  of  the  coming 
summer,  and  of  the  full,  unclouded  light  of  God's  own  sun  beam- 
ing upon  her.  And,  just  as  the  little  leaf  that  comes  forth  in  the 
corn-field  to-day,  holds  in  its  tiny  bosom  the  promise  of  the  full 
ear  of  wheat,  bending  its  rich,  autumnal  head,  the  staff  of  life  to  all 
men,  so  Mary's  coming,  from  the  beginning,  was  a  herald  and  a 
promise  of  His  appearance  upon  the  earth — was  the  announce- 
ment that  that  little  plant  was  to  grow  and  to  endure,  until  it 
was  to  be  crowned  with  the  purity  of  God,  and  to  bring  forth 
the  bread  of  life,  the  manna  of  heaven,  the  bread  of  angels, 
Jesus  Christ,  the  world's  Redeemer,  the  Word  made  flesh. 

How  well,  therefore,  dearly  beloved  brethren,  how  well  does 
not  this  fair  Spring  month  of  May,  this  opening  of  the  summer 
of  the  year,  testify  in  nature  what  Mary  was  in  the  order  of 


The  Month  of  Mary.  523 

grace.  And  just  as  the  Almighty  God  clothes  this  month  in  the 
order  of  nature  with  every  beauty,  fills  the  fields  with  fragrance, 
clothes  the  hill-sides  with  the  varied  garb  of  beauty  that  nature 
puts  forth,  so  tender,  so  fair  in  its  early  promise,  so  also  the  Al- 
mighty God  clothed  the  Spring— the  spiritual  Spring  of  man's 
redemption,  which  was  Mary,  in  every  form  of  spiritual  beauty, 
and  robed  her  in  every  richest  garb  of  divine  loveliness  of  which 
a  creature  was  capable,  so  that  every  gift  in  God's  hand  that  a 
human  creature  was  capable  of  receiving,  Mary  received.  For, 
in  her  the  word  of  my  text  was  to  be  fulfilled.  It  was  a  strange 
promise,  beloved ;  a  strange  and  a  startling  word  that  came  from 
the  inspired  lips  of  the  Psalmist  as  he  said,  speaking  of  His 
chosen  :  "  I  have  said :  You  are  Gods,  and  all  you  the  sons  ' 
of  the  Most  High !  "  That  word  was  never  fulfilled  until  the 
Son  of  the  Most  High  became  the  son  of  a  woman.  This 
was  the  meaning  of  St.  Augustine,  when  he  says :  "  God 
came  down  from  heaven -in  order  that  He  might  bring  man 
from  earth  to  heaven,  and  make  him  even  as  God."  Thus  it 
was  that  man,  in  the  Child  of  Mary,  united  with  God,  became 
the  Son  of  the  Most  High.  Thus  it  was  that,  in  virtue  of  the 
union  of  the  human  and  divine  which  took  place  in  Mary,  we 
have  all  received,  by  the  grace  of  adoption,  the  faculty  to  become 
children  of  God.  "  But  to  as  many  as  received  Him,"  says  St. 
John,  "  to  them  did  He  give  the  power  to  be  made  the  sons  of 
God-."  And  this  was  the  essential  mission,  the  inherent  idea  of 
Christianity — to  make  men  the  sons  of  God  ;  to  make  you  «nd 
me  the  sons  of  God  by  infusing  into  us  the  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ, 
and  bringing  forth,  in  our  lives,  and  in  our  actions,  and  in  our 
thoughtf  and  in  our  inner  souls,  as  well  as  in  the  outer  man,  the 
graces  and  glorious  gifts  that  Jesus  Christ  brought  down  to  our 
humanity  in  Mary's  womb.  Never  has  this  idea  been  lost  to 
the  Catholic  Church.  My  friends  and  brethren,  you  are  living 
now  in  the  midst  of  strangers.  You  hear  the  wildest  theories 
propounded  every  day  in  philosophy,  in  science;  but  in 
nothing  are  the  theories  or  the  vagaries  of  the  human  mind 
so  strange  as  when  they  take  the  form  of  religious  speculation 
or  religious  doubt.-  The  notion  prevalent  among  all  men  out- 
side of  the  Catholic  Church  nowadays  is,  that  man  has  within 
him,  naturally,  without  the  action  of  God,  without  the  action 
of  Christ,  the  seeds  of  the  perfection  of  his  life  ;  that  by  his 


524  The  Month  of  Mary. 

own  efforts,  and  by  his  own  study,  and  by  what  is  called  the 
spirit  of  progress,  a  man  may  attain  to  the  perfection  of  his  own 
being  without  God,  and  become  all  that  God  intended  him  to 
become.  That  notion  is  antagonistic  and  destructive  of  the 
very  first  vital  principle  of  Christianity.  The  vital  principle  of 
Christianity  is  this :  the  Son  of  God  came  down  from  heaven 
and  became  man,  and  the  child,  the  true  child,  of  a  woman,  in 
order  that  mankind,  in  Him  and  through  Him,  might  be  able  to 
clothe  itself  with  His  virtues,  and  so  become  like  to  God.  And 
in  that  likeness  to  God  lies  the  whole  perfection  of  our  being ; 
and  the  end  of  Christianity  is  to  bring  every  sufficient  agency 
to  bear  upon  man  ;  to  make  that  man  like  to  God ;  to  make 
him  as  the  Son  of  God.  "  I  have  said,  Ye  are  Gods,  all  of  you, 
sons  of  the  Most  High  !  " 

God  is  a  God  of  truth.  Man  must  be  a  man  of  truth  in  order 
to  be  like  to  God.  God  possesses  the  truth.  He  does  not  seek 
for  it.  He  has  it.  He  does  not  go  groping,  sophisticating,  and 
thinking,  and  arguing  in  order  to  come  at  the  truth..  Truth  is 
God  Himself.  And  so,  in  like  manner,  man,  to  be  a  child  of 
God,  must  have  the  truth,  and  not  look  for  it.  God  is  sanctity 
and  purity  in  Himself.  Man  must  be  holy  and  pure  in  order  to 
be  made  the  Son  of  God.  He  must  be  free  from  sin  in  order  to 
be  like  to  God,  the  Father.  He  must  have  a  power  over  his  pas- 
sions to  restrain  them,  to  be  pure  in  thought,  in  word,  and  in 
action,  in  soul  and  in  body,  before  he  can  be  made  like  to  the 
Son  of  God.  And  that  religion  alone,  which  has  the  truth  and 
gives  it ;  which  has  grace  and  gives  it ;  which  touches  sin  and 
destroys  it ;  which  enables  the  soul  to  conquer  the  body ;  which 
holds  up  in  her  sanctuaries  the  types  of  that  purity  which  is  the 
highest  reflection  of  the  infinite  purity  of  Jesus  Christ — that 
religion  alone  can  be  the  true  religion  of  God.  Every  other 
religion  is  a  lie.  But  the  world  is  unable  to  believe  this.  Men 
compromise  with  their  passions.  Men  go  to  a  certain  extent  in 
satisfying  their  evil  inclinations.  Men  refuse  to  accept  the  truth 
because  the  truth  humbles  them.  Hence  the  Protestant 
maxim  :  "  Read  the  Bible,  read  the  Bible,  and  don't  listen 
to  any  priest !  These  Catholics  are  a  priest-ridden  people. 
Whatever  the  piiest  says  in  the  church  is  law  with  Catholics." 
They  refuse  the  humility  of  this.  They  won't  take  the  truth. 
They  must  find  it  for  themselves ;  and  the  man  who  seeks  it, 


The  Month  of  Mary.  525 

by  the  very  fact  of  seeking  it  shows  he  is  not  the  son  of  God.  I 
say  this  much  because,  my  dear  friends,  I  wish  you  to  guard 
against  the  wild,  reckless  spirit  that  is  abroad  in  the  world  to- 
day ;  I  wish  to  guard  you  in  your  fidelity  to  the  Church  of  God, 
your  mother,  in  your  fidelity  to  her  teaching,  in  your  fidelity  ta 
her  sacraments  ;  that  word  that  she  puts  on  my  lips  and  such 
as  me— that  sacramental  grace  that  she  puts  into  the  hands  of 
the  priest  for  you  ;  these  are  the  elements  of  your  salvation  ; 
these  are  the  means  by  which  every  one  of  you  may  become  the 
child  of  God  ;  and  there  is  no  perfection,  no  scheme  of  perfection, 
no  secret  of  success,  no  plan  of  progress  outside  of  this  that  is 
not  an  institution  of  the  enemy,  a  delusion,  a  mockery,  and  a 
snare.  And  all  this  we  get  through  Mary,  because  Mary  was 
the  chosen  instrument  in  the  hands  of  God  to  give  to  Him  that 
human  nature  in  which  man  was  made  even  as  the  Son  of  God. 
Mary's  coming  upon  the  earth,  therefore,  was  a  Spring-time  of 
grace.  Mary's  appearance  in  this  world  was  like  the  morning 
star  when,  in  the  morning,  after  the  darkness  and  tempest 
of  the  night,  the  sailor,  standing  upon  the  prow  of  the  ship, 
looks  around  to  find  the  eastern  point  of  the  horizon,  and  he 
sees,  suddenly  rising  out  of  the  eastern  wave,  a  silver  star,  beau- 
tiful in  its  pure  beauty,  trembling  as  if  it  were  a  living  thing. 
And  he  knows  that  there  is  the  east,  for  this  is  the  morning  star. 
He  knows  that  precisely  in  that  point,  in  a  few  moments,  the  sun 
will  rise  in  all  his  splendor,  and  he  knows  that  that  sun  is  com- 
ing because  the  herald  that  proclaims  the  sun  has  risen.  The 
morning  star  proclaims  to  the  wild  wanderer  on  the  deep,  in  the 
eastern  horizon,  the  advent  of  the  coming  day.  So  with  us, 
upon  the  wild  and  angry  waves  of  sin  and  of  error,  and  of  God's 
anger  and  curse,  our  poor  humanity,  shipwrecked  in  the  garden 
of  Eden  ;  our  poor  humanity,  without  even  the  wreck  left  to  us 
of  the  sacrament  of  penance  ;  our  poor  humanity,  groping  in  the 
sacrifices  and  in  the  oblations  of  the  world,  for  the  love  of  God, 
the  Redeemer,  the  day-star  whose  light  was  to  illumine  the  dark- 
ness of  the  world — behold,  suddenly,  the  morning  star  rises,  the 
pale,  trembling,  silver  beauty  of  Mary  !  Then  it  was  known  that 
speedily,  and  in  a  few  years,  the  world  would  behold  its  Redeemer, 
and  mankind  would  be  saved  in  the  fullness  of  Mary's  time. 
Therefore  it  is,  that  she  enters  so  largely  into  the  scheme  and  plan 
of  redemption,  that  the  Almighty  God  willed  it,  that  even  as  the 


526  The  Month  of  Mary. 

name  of  Jesus  Christ  was  to  be  made  known  to  all  men,  was  to 
be  glorified  of  all  men,  was  to  be  proclaimed  as  the  only  name 
under  heaven  by  which  man  was  to  be  saved  ;  and  so,  also,  side 
by  side  with  His  purpose  of  God's  declaration  of  the  glory  of 
His  divine  Son,  came  the  prophecy  of  Mary,  from  the  same 
spirit,  that  wherever  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  was  heard  and 
revered,  that  there,  and  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  all  generations 
were  to  call  her  blessed.  "  He  that  is  mighty  hath  wrought 
great  things  in  me,"  she  says ;  "  Wherefore,  behold,  henceforth 
all  generations  shall  call  me  blessed." 

And  now,  my  friends,  going  back  to  the  fountain-head  of  our 
Christianity,  going  back  to  the  earliest  traditions  of  the  Church 
of  God,  examining,  with  the  light  of  human  scrutiny,  her  spirit, 
as  manifested  in  the  earliest  ages  of  her  being,  in  the  earliest 
documents  she  presents  us  with,* does  not  every  man  find  that 
wherever  the  true  religion  of  Christ  was  propagated,  wherever 
there  was  the  genius  and  the  instinct  of  faith  that  adored  Jesus 
Christ,  there  came  the  fellow-instinct  and  genius  that  loved,  and 
revered,  and  venerated,  and  honored  the  woman  who  was  His 
mother.  If  every  other  proof  of  this  was  wanting,  there  is  one 
proof— a  most  emphatic  proof— and  it  is  this :  that  whilst  the 
Blessed  Virgin  Mary  was  yet  living,  during  the  twelve  years 
that  elapsed  before  her  assumption  into  heaven,  a  religious  order 
was  organized  in  the  Catholic  Church,  devoted  to  the  venera- 
tion, and  the  love,  and  the  honor  of  the  Blessed  Virgin — a  re- 
ligious order  dating  from  the  early  times  of  the  prophet — a 
religious  order  founded  by  the  sons  of  the  prophets,  under  the 
Jewish  dispensation,  was  converted  to  Christianity,  and  at  once 
banded  itself  together  and  called  itself  "  The  Brethren  of  our 
Lady  of  Mount  Carmel."  No  sooner  was  our  Lady  assumed 
into  heaven,  than  these  men  spread  themselves  through  Pales- 
tine and  through  the  East,  and  the  burden  of  their  teaching  and 
their  devotion  was  the  glory  of  the  Mother  of  God  ;  the  woman 
who  brought  forth  the  Man-God,  Jesus  Christ.  No  sooner  was 
the  Gospel  preached  than  the  devotion  to  the  Blessed  Virgin 
Mary  spread  with  the  rapidity  of  thought,  of  sentiment,  and  of 
love,  through  all  distant  parts ;  and  when,  five  hundred  years 
later,  a  man  rose  up  and  denied  that  Mary  was  the  Mother  of 
God,  we  read  that  when  the  Church  assembled  at  Ephesus  in  gen- 
eral covncil,  the  people  came  from  all  the  surrounding  countries. 


The  Month  of  Mary.  527 

and  the  great  city  of  Ephesus  was  overcrowded  with  the  mxious 
people,  all  waiting  for  the  result  of  the  deliberations,  and  all  pray- 
ing; and  when,  at  last,  the  Council  of  the  Holy  Church  of  God 
put  forth  its  edict,  declaring  that  Mary  was  the  true  Mother  of 
God,  we  read  of  the  joy  that  came  from  the  people's  hearts,  the 
cry  of  delight  that  rang  from  their  lips,  the  "All  Hail  !  "  that 
they  gave  to  you,  Mother  in  heaven,  spread  throughout  the 
universal  Church,  and  never,  among  the  many  conclusions  of 
her  councils  for  eighteen  hundred  years,  never  did  the  holy 
Catholic  Church  give  greater  joy  to  her  children,  than  when  she 
proclaimed,  in  the  fifth  century,  that  Mary  was  the  Mother  of 
God,  and,  in  the  nineteenth  century,  that  Mary  was  conceived 
without  sin.  But  as  we  are  entering  upon  this  May's  devotions, 
I  wish,  dearly  beloved,  to  bring  unto  your  notice  this  very  de- 
votion to  the  Mother  Mary  as  a  wonderful  instance  of  the 
rapidity  with  which  this  devotion  to  the  Mother  of  God  spread 
throughout  the  Catholic  Church. 

It  was  at  the  beginning  of  this  present  century  that  this  de- 
votion of  the  Month  of  Mary  sprang  up  in  the  Catholic  Church  ; 
and  the  circumstances  of  its  origin  are  most  wonderful.  Some 
seventy  years  ago,  or  thereabouts,  a  little  child — a  poor  little 
child — scarcely  come  to  the  use  of  reason,  on  a  beautiful  even- 
ing in  May,  knelt  down,  and  began  to  lisp  with  childish  voice 
the  Litany  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  before  the  image  of  the  Child  in 
the  arms  of  the  Madonna  in  one  of  the  streets  of  Rome.  One 
little  child  in  Rome,  moved  by  an  impulse  that  we  cannot 
account  for — apparently  a  childish  freak — knelt  down  in  the 
public  streets  and  began  saying  the  litany  that  he  heard  sung  in 
the  church.  The  next  evening  he  was  there  again  at  the  same 
hour,  and  began  singing  his  little  litany  again.  Another  little 
child,  a  little  boy,  on  his  passage  stopped,  and  began  singing 
the  responses.  The  next  evening  three  or  four  other  children 
came,  apparently  for  amusement,  and  knelt  before  the  same 
image  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  and  sang  their  litany.  After  a 
time — after  a  few  evenings — some  pious  women,  the  mothers  of 
the  children,  delighted  to  see  the  early  piety  of  their  sons  and 
daughters,  came  along  with  them,  and  knelt  down,  and  blended 
their  voices  in  the  litany  ;  and  the  priest  of  a  neighboring  church 
said :  "  Come  into  the  church,  and  I  will  light  a  few  candles  on 
the  altar  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  and  we  will   all  sing  the  litany 


528  The  Month  of  Mary. 

together."  And  so  they  went  into  the  church;  they  lighted  up 
the  candles,  and  knelt,  and  there  they  sang  the  litany.  He 
spoke  a  few  words  to  them  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  about  her  pa- 
tience, about  her  love  for  her  Divine  Son,  and  about  the  dutiful 
veneration  in  which  she  was  held  by  her  Son.  From  that  hour 
the  devotion  of  the  month  of  May  spread  throughout  the 
whole  Catholic  world  ;  until  within  a  few  years,  wherever  there 
was  a  Catholic  church,  a  Catholic  altar,  a  Catholic  priest,  or 
a  Catholic  to  hear  and  respond  to  the  litany,  the  month  of 
May  became  the  month  of  Mary,  the  month  of  devotion  to 
the  Blessed  Virgin.  Is  not  this  wonderful  ?  Is  not  this  per- 
fectly astonishing?  How  naturally  the  idea  came  home  to  the 
Catholic  mind  !  With  what  love  it  has  been  kept  up !  With 
what  love — with  what  instinct — it  spread  itself!  How  con- 
genial it  was  to  the  soil  saturated  with  the  divine  grace  through 
the  intelligence,  as  illumined  by  divine  knowledge  and  divine 
faith  !  Does  it  not  remind  you  of  that  wonderful  passage  in 
the  Book  of  Kings,  where  the  prophet  Elias  went  up  into  the 
mountain-top,  when  for  three  years  it  had  not  rained  on  the 
land,  and  the  land  was  dried  up ;  and  he  went  up  on  the  solitary 
summit  of  the  mount,  there  to  breathe  a  prayer  to  God  to  send 
rain  upon  the  land.  Whilst  he  was  praying  in  a  cave  in  the 
rock,  he  told  his  servant  to  stand  upon  the  summit  of  the  moun- 
tain, and  to  watch  all  round,  and  to  give  him  notice  when  he 
saw  a  cloud.  The  servant  watched,  and  returned  seven  times — 
"  and  at  the  seventh  time,  behold,  a  little  cloud  arose  out  of  the 
sea,  like  a  man's  foot  ....  and  while  he  turned  himself 
this  way  and  that  way,  behold,  the  heavens  grew  dark  with 
clouds  and  wind,  and  there  fell  a  great  rain." 

The  word  "  Mary  "  means  the  sea — the  star  of  the  sea.  A 
few  years  ago,  a  cloud  of  devotion,  no  larger  than  the  foot  of 
a  little  child,  in  Rome  was  seen,  and  whilst  men  looked  this 
way  and  that  way,  it  spreads  over  the  whole  horizon  of  the 
Church  of  God,  and  over  the  whole  world,  and  then,  breaking  in 
a  rain  of  grace  and  intercession,  it  brings  an  element  of  purity, 
and  grace,  and  dignity,  and  every  gift  of  God  to  every  Catholic 
soul  throughout  the  world.  Oh  !  when  I  think  of  the  women 
that  I  have  met  in  the  dear  old  land  of  Faith !  The  women 
oppressed  from  one  cause  or  from  another  !  Some  with  sickness 
in  the  house  ;  some  with,  perhaps,  a  dissolute  son  ;  some  with 


The  Month  of  Mary.  529 

a  drunken  husband  ;  some  with  the  fear  of  some  great  calamity 
or  of  poverty,  coming  upon  them  ;  some  apprehensive  of  bad 
news  from  those  that  they  love.  How  often  have  I  seen  them 
coming  to  me  in  the  month  of  May,  just  in  the  beginning,  and 
brightening  up,  thank  God  and  say,  the  month  is  come  !  I  know, 
She  in  heaven  will  pray  for  me,  and  that  my  prayers  will  be 
heard  !  And  I  have  seen  them  so  often  coming  before  the  end  of 
the  month,  to  tell  me,  with  the  light  of  joy  in  their  eyes,  that  the 
Mother  heard  their  prayer,  and  that  their  petitions  were  granted  ; 
then  was  I  reminded  of  that  mysterious  cloud  that  broke  out  in 
the  heavens,  and  rained  down  the  saving  rain.  One  have  I  be- 
fore me — one  whom  I  knew  and  loved — a  holy  nun  who,  for 
more  than  fifty  years,  had  served  God  in  angelic  purity,  and  in 
heroic  sacrifice.  For  seven  months  she  was  confined  to  a  bed 
of  pain  and  of  suffering  that  deepened  into  agony.  And,  during 
those  seven  months,  her  prayer  to  God  was,  whilst  suffering, 
to  increase  those  sufferings.  Not  to  let  her  leave  the  world 
until  one  whom  she  loved  dearly,  and  who  was  leading  a 
bad  and  reckless  life,  should  be  converted  unto  God.  Weeks 
passed  into  months,  and  month  followed  month,  and  most 
frequently  did  I  sit  at  the  bedside  of  my  holy  friend.  Month 
followed  month  for  seven  long,  dreary  months,  and  she  spent 
that  time  upon  the  Cross,  truly  with  Jesus  Christ.  But  when  the 
first  day  of  May  came — the  month  of  Mary — I  came  and  knelt 
down  by  her  bedside,  to  cheer  her  with  prayer  and  with  sym- 
pathy. She  said  to  me,  "  I  feel  that  the  month  is  come  that 
will  give  me  joy  and  relief.  It  is  Mary's  month,  and  it  is  the 
month  when  prayer  grows  most  powerful  in  heaven,  because  it 
is  the  month  in  which  the  Mother  will  especially  hear  our 
prayers."  Before  that  month  was  over,  he  for  whom  she 
prayed  was  converted  to  God,  with  all  the  fervor  of  a  true 
conversion ;  and  when  the  month  was  drawing  to  a  close, 
the  sacrifice  of  pain  and  suffering  was  accepted,  and  she  who 
began  the  month  in  sorrow,  ended  it  with  the  joys  of  Jesus 
Christ  and  his  Virgin  Mother.  So  it  is  all  the  world  over. 
His  secret  graces  are  poured  out  at  the  instance  of  Mary's  prayer. 
And  even  as  she  was  the  Spring-time  of  grace  upon  earth,  so  is 
she  even  now  in  heaven,  by  her  prayer  for  us  the  spring-time  of 
holy  grace,  obtaining  for  us  the  grace  of  repentance,  the  grace 
of  prayer,  the  grace  of  temperance,  the  grace  and   power  of  self- 

34 


530 


The  Month  of  Mary. 


restraint- -in  a  word,  whatever  grace  we  demand,  that,  spring- 
ing up  in  our  souls,  will  produce  to-day  the  flower  and  leaf  of 
promise — to-morrow,  the  fruit  of  maturity — and  for  eternity, 
the  reward  of  grace  which  is  the  everlasting  crown  of  God't 
glory 


f#l|fll^^ 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH  THE 
TRUE  EMANCIPATOR. 


[Delivered  in  St.  Stephen's  Church,  New  York,  in  aid  of  the  mission  to  the  colored 
race  in  this  country.] 

Y  DEAR  FRIENDS:  I  am  come  before  you  this 
evening  to  assert  a  proposition  which  would  require 
no  proof,  if  all  men  were  of  one  mind  regarding  the 
claims  of  the  Catholic  Church  to  be  the  Church  of 
Christ.  I  assert  for  the  Catholic  Church  that  she  is  the  true 
emancipator  of  the  slave  ;  and  I  say  again,  that  if  men  were  of 
one  mind  touching  her  claims  to  be  the  true  Christian  Church, 
this  proposition  would  require  no  proof;  for,  any  man  who  be- 
lieves in  the  agency  of  Christ  as  perpetuated  in  His  Church, 
must  at  once  conclude  that  one  of  the  highest  and  greatest  of 
the  duties  of  that  Church  is  the  duty  which  her  divine  founder, 
Himself,  came  to  accomplish — viz.:  the  work  of  emancipation. 
He  came  and  found,  not  this  race,  or  that,  not  this  class  or  order 
of  men,  or  that,  but  all  mankind,  and  all  races  of  men,  enslaved 
in  the  direst  form  of  slavery  ;  a  slavery  that  entered  into  their 
very  souls ;  a  slavery  that  not  only  destroyed  their  freedom  of 
will,  but  also  clouded,  and  thereby  destroyed,  the  clearness  of 
their  intelligence  ;  a  slavery  that  bound  them  helpless  at  the 
feet  of  the  most  cruel  of  all  masters,  for  that  master  was  no 
other  than  the  devil,  the  prince  and  ruler  of  all  mankind,  the 
enslaver  of  the  intellect,  of  the  will,  and  of  the  soul  of  man. 
The  prophet  of  old  had  foretold  of  our  divine  Lord  and  Re- 
deemer, that  He  came  to  break  the  chains  of  man's  slavery,  to 
emancipate  him,  to  take  him  from  out  that  deep  and  terrible 
servitude  into  which  he  was  fallen,  and  to  endow  him  once  more 
with  "the  freedom  of  the  glory  of  the  children  of  God."  There- 


532  The  Catholic  Church 

fore  He  came.  Amongst  all  the  other  titles  that  belonged  to 
Him  is  that  pre-eminently  of  the  emancipator  of  an  enslaved 
and  a  fallen  race.  And  if  His  action  is  to  continue  in  the 
Church,  if  His  graces  are  to  flow  on  through  that  Church,  and 
His  light  is  to  come  forth,  pure,  and  bright,  and  radiant  in  the 
Church  which  He  founded,  all  we  have  to  do  is  to  find  that 
Church;  and,  bound  to  her  brows,  we  shall  find  the  crown  of 
the  emancipator  of  the  human  race.  That  Church  we  Catholics 
know  and  believe  to  be  the  mother  that  has  "  begotten  us  unto 
God,  through  the  Gospel." 

Now,  my  friends,  how  did  Christ  effect  the  work  of  His  eman- 
cipation ?  I  answer,  that  He  emancipated  or  freed  the  intelli- 
gence of  man  from  the  slavery  of  the  intellect,  which  is  error ; 
and  that  He  emancipated  the  will  of  man  from  the  slavery  of 
the  will,  which  is  sin.  And  he  carefully  defined  what  manner 
of  freedom  He  came  to  found  and  confer,  when  He  said  to  a 
benighted  race,  whom  He  enlightened:  "You  shall  know  the 
truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free."  And,  to  a  degraded 
and  corrupt  race,  He  said :  "lam  come  that,  where  sin  hath 
abounded,  grace  might  abound  still  more  ;"  and,  in  the  abun- 
dance of  His  grace  He  called  us  unto  the  freedom  of  the  chil- 
dren of  God. 

Behold,  then,  the  elements  of  emancipation,  as  found  in  the 
actions  and  in  the  words  of  the  Son  of  God,  the  Redeemer,  the 
Saviour,  and  the  Emancipator.  Truth  ;  truth  broadly  diffused  ; 
truth  borne  upon  the  wings  of  knowledge  unto  every  mind. 
Not  speculation,  but  truth  ;  not  opinion,  but  knowledge  ;  not 
study  of  the  truth,  but  possession  of  the  truth.  There,  says  the 
Son  of  God,  lies  the  secret  of  your  intellectual  freedom.  There- 
fore He  lifted  up  His  voice  ;  He  flung  abroad  the  banner  of  His 
eternal  truth  ;  He  called  all  men  to  hear  the  sound  of  His  voice, 
and  to  rally  round  the  standard  of  His  truth  and  of  His  knowl- 
edge. And  the  word  which  He  spoke  was  borne  upon  the 
wings  of  the  angels  for  all  future  time,  unto  the  farthest  ends  of 
the  earth,  upon  the  lips  of  the  preaching  and  infallible  Church 
which  Pie  founded.  I  say  the  "  preaching  Church"  which  He 
founded,  for  "Faith  comes  by  hearing;"  and  the  knowledge 
which  emancipates  the  intelligence  must  come  by  a  Lving  voice. 
But,  I  add,  as  no  other  knowledge  save  that  of  the  pure  truth 
as  it  is  in  the  mind  of  Jesus  Christ,  thus  delivered  by  a  living 


The   True  Emancipator.  533 

voice,  can  emancipate  the  intelligence  of  man,  therefore  the 
voice  which  He  commanded  to  teach  the  world,  must  bear  the 
unfailing,  and  infallible,  and  unmixed  message  of  the  truth  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  For,  if  that  voice  can  admit  the  slight- 
est blending  of  error,  if  that  voice  can  falter  in  the  delivery  of 
the  truth — or  mix  up  the  slightest  distortion  of  error  with  that 
truth — it  ceases  to  be  the  voice  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  it  only,  in 
its  teachings,  substitutes  one  form  of  slavery  for  another.  Oh, 
if  the  men  of  our  day  would  only  understand  this  !  If  the  men 
who  boast  of  their  civilization  would  only  understand  this  :  that 
whatever  is  not  the  truth  is  not  the  voice  nor  the  message  of 
God  ;  whatever,  by  any  possibility,  can  be  untrue,  cannot  be  the 
voice  of  God  ;  if  men  would  only  understand  this  :  that  there  is 
no  greater  insult  that  we  can  offer  to  a  God  of  truth,  than  to 
take  a  religious  lie — a  distorted  view,  a  false  idea — put  it  into 
our  minds,  and  say:  This  is  the  truth  of  God  ;  this  is  religious 
truth  !  But,  no  !  We  boast  to-day  of  our  liberality  ;  we  boast 
to-day  of  the  multitude  of  our  sects,  and  of  our  religious  institu- 
tions ;  we  boast  to-day  of  an  open  Bible,  from  which  every  man 
draws — not  the  Word  of  God,  for  I  deny  that  it  is  the  Word  of 
God — it  is  the  Word  of  God  only  when  it  is  taken  from  that 
page  as  it  lies  in  the  mind  of  God — we  boast  to-day  that  that 
Bible  is  open  to  every  man  to  look  in  it  for  the  canonization  of 
his  own  error,  lying  in  his  distorted  meaning  given  to  that 
divinely  inspired  page  ;  and  then,  we  pretend  that  all  this  is  a 
mark  of  religion  ;  and  the  man  who  would  indignantly  resent  a 
lie,  told  him  in  the  ordinary  avocations  and  social  duties  of  life  ; 
the  man  who  would  resent,  as  a  deep  injury,  being  taken  in  in  a 
matter  of  business,  in  the  furnishing  of  an  account,  or  any  such 
transitory  thing,  is  precisely  the  man  that  is  most  indifferent,  and 
careless,  and  most  easily  reconciled,  when  it  is  a  matter  that  lies 
between  him  and  the  God  of  truth,  whether  he  possesses  that 
truth  or  not.  Yet,  I  say  again,  it  is  a  disreputable  thing  to  be 
taken  in  by  a  lie,  to  believe  a  lie.  It  is  a  mark  of  intellectual 
and  moral  imbecility  to  cling  to  a  lie,  and  uphold  it  as  the 
truth.  And  remember  that,  when  it  is  a  matter  between  us  and 
God — the  interpretation  of  the  message  of  God — the  tone  that 
the  voice  of  God  takes  in  falling  upon  our  ear;  remember  that 
whatever  is  not  true  as  God,  is  the  worst  form  of  untruth,  for  it 
is  a  lie  involving  insult  to  God  and  destruction  to  man,  and  that 


534  The  Catholic  Church 

the  truth  of  God  is  declared  to  be,  by  the  Saviour  of  the  world, 
the  essential,  primary  element  of  that  emancipation  with  which 
Jesus  Christ  came  down  to  free  us 

But,  dear  friends,  grand  and  magnificent  as  is  the  possession 
of  that  truth,  luminous  as  the  light  is  which  is  poured  into  the 
soul  from  the  Almighty  God,  through  the  eyes  of  the  mind, 
opening  to  divine  truth,  it  is  not  enough  to  accomplish  the  free- 
dom of  man.  The  soul  of  freedom  lies  not  only  in  the  mind 
possessing  truth,  and  thus  shaking  off  the  chains  of  intellectual 
slavery,  which  is  error ;  but  it  also  lies  in  the  will,  sanctified, 
strengthened,  and  purified  by  the  divine  grace  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Of  what  avail  to  you,  my  fellow-men,  or  to  me,  that  we  should 
know  all  knowledge  ? — if  a  man  is  a  slave  to  his  own  passions — 
if  every  degrading  passion  and  inclination,  of  abase  or  an  inferior 
nature,  has  only  to  cry  out  imperiously  to  be  instantly  served 
and  gratified,  at  the  expense  of  the  soul's  nobility  and  life,  and 
at  the  expense  of  God's  friendship  and  His  grace.  Of  what 
avail  is  knowledge  to  a  man  if  that  man  be  impure  ?  Of  what 
avail  are  the  soundest  principles  or  examples,  moral  or  divine, 
to  that  man  who,  holding  them,  does  not  act  up  to  them,  but  is 
dishonest?  And,  therefore,  there  is  another  and  a  more  terrible 
slavery,  even,  than  that  of  the  intellect ;  and  that  is,  the  slavery 
of  the  will.  Now,  to  meet  this,  Christ  our  Lord,  the  divine 
healer,  the  divine  physician  of  our  souls,  established  certain 
means  by  which  His  grace,  His  strength,  His  purity,  was  to 
be  communicated  to  us,  to  our  wills,  just  as,  by  the  preaching  of 
the  Gospel  in  the  Church,  her  light  is  communicated  to  our  in- 
telligence. And  these  means  are,  the  sacred  morality  of  the 
Church's  laws;  the  sacred  barriers  that  she  uprears  between  the 
soul  and  sin ;  the  sacramental  graces  that  she  pours  forth  to 
heal  the  soul,  and  purify  it,  and  cleanse  it  again,  if  it  be  tainted 
and  sullied  by  sin  ;  the  agencies  that  she  holds  in  her  hands  to 
preserve  that  soul  from  a  relapse  into  sin,  strengthening  it  so 
that  it  is  able  to  command  all  its  passions,  to  repress  all  undue 
and  corrupting  inclinations,  to  give  a  triumph  to  the  spirit  over 
matter — to  the  soul  over  the  body — until  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
who  was  not  only  the  fountain  of  all  truth,  but  the  creator  of  all 
holiness,  and  its  representative,  be  reproduced  again  in  the  souls 
of  all  his  children,  and  a  perfect  people  be  reared  up  in  sanctity 
to  God. 


The   True  Emancipator.  535 

Without  this  grace  of  the  heart  and  the  will,  there  is  no  free- 
dom. Without  the  agency  of  the  Church,  I  say,  as  a  rule,  there 
can  be  no  grace.  Without  her  sacraments,  the  will  of  man — 
the  will  of  man,  which  may  be  enslaved — the  will  of  man,  which 
is  enslaved  whenever  man  is  in  sin — can  never  be  touched  ;  for 
the  sacramental  hand  of  the  Church  alone  can  touch  it.  And 
here,  again,  as  the  word  of  the  Church's  teaching  must  be  no 
other  than  the  word  of  Jesus  Christ  himself — not  only  as  it  is 
written  in  the  inspired  volumes,  but  as  it  lies  in  the  mind  of  God, 
and,  therefore,  the  Church  is  bound  to  explain  it ;  so,  also,  the 
graces  of  the  Church,  and  the  agency  that  she  has  in  her  hands 
to  touch  the  will,  must  be  no  other  than  the  very  power,  the 
very  action,  the  very  grace  of  Jesus  Christ.  No  other  hand  but 
His,  no  other  power  but  His,  no  other  influence  but  His — the 
Lord,  the  Redeemer,  the  Saviour — coming  home  to  every  in- 
dividual man,  can  purify  that  man's  soul,  and  strengthen  him  to 
gain  the  victory  which  conquereth  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the 
devil ;  the  victory  of  divine  faith  !  For,  of  what  avail  to  me,  I 
ask  you,  of  what  avail  to  me  is  it  that  a  priest  should  lift  up  his 
hand  and  say,  "  I  absolve  thee  from  thy  sin,"  unless  that  word, 
that  grace,  that  power  to  do  it,  come  to  that  priest  from  Jesus 
Christ  ?  Of  what  avail  to  me  that  a  man  pour  water  on  my 
head,  and  say,  "  I  baptize  thee  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  Son, 
and  Holy  Ghost,"  unless  that  baptism,  that  water,  had  sacra- 
mental influence,  instituted  by  the  Lord,  endowed  with  a 
peculiar  power  for  this  purpose — the  cleansing  of  the  soul — and 
be  tinged,  mystically,  with  the  saving  blood  of  the  Redeemer? 
Of  what  avail  to  me  if  I  come  to  this  altar,  open  my  mouth,  and 
receive  what  appears  to  be  a  morsel  of  bread,  unless  the  Re- 
deemer of  the  world  had  said,  "  Without  me  you  can  do  nothing. 
And  now,  I  will  come  to  you.  Take  ye,  and  eat  of  this  ;  for 
this  is  my  body  and  my  blood  "  ?  Therefore,  it  is  the  action  of 
Jesus  Christ  that  must  remain  as  powerful,  as  pure,  as  merciful, 
in  the  dispensation  of  the  Church's  grace— as  her  words  must 
be  pure  from  error,  and  unmixed  with  error,  upon  the  lips  of 
the  Church's  preaching.  Behold  the  two  great  elements  of 
man's  emancipation.  Wherever  these  are  not,  there  is  a 
slavery.  He  that  believes  a  lie— and,  above  all,  a  religious  un- 
tl.uth — is  a  slave.  He  that  commits  sin,  is  the  slave  of  sin. 
What  avails  it  that  you  emancipate  a  man— strike  the  chains  off 


536  The  Catholic  Churcn 

his  hands — send  him  forth,  in  name,  a  free  man  ;  send  him  forth 
with  every  constitutional  right  and  civic  privilege  upon  him  ; 
send  him  forth  glorying  in  his  freedom,  without  understanding 
it,  and,  perhaps,  unprepared  to  use  it  properly?  If  you  leave 
that  man's  intelligence  under  the  gloom  of  ignorance — if  you 
leave  that  man's  will  under  the  dominion  of  sin  and  of  his  own 
passions,  have  you  made  him  a  free  man  ?  You  call  him  a  free 
man.  But,  God  in  heaven,  and,  unfortunately,  the  devil  in  hell 
laughs  and  scoffs  at  your  idea  of  freedom. 

And  now,  my  friends,  this  being  the  mission,  declared  and 
avowed  by  our  Divine  Lord — this,  consequently,  being  the  mis- 
sion handed  into  the  hands  of  the  Church  to  be  fulfilled  by  her, 
let  us  turn  to  the  Church's  history  and  see  whether  she  has 
been  faithful  to  her  duty  in  thus  applying  the  elements  of 
emancipation  to  man.  It  is  an  historical  question,  and  one  that 
I  must  deal  with,  principally,  historically.  Now,  in  order  to 
understand  it,  we  are,  first  of  all,  to  consider,  what  was  the  state 
of  the  world  when  the  Church  began  her  mission  ?  How  did 
she  find  society  ?  Was  it  barbarous  or  civilized  ?  I  answer 
that  the  Church's  mission,  when  she  first  opened  her  lips  to 
preach  the  Gospel,  was  to  a  most  civilized  and  highly  intellectual 
people.  Augustus  was  in  his  grave,  but  the  Augustan  era,  the 
proudest,  the  highest,  and  most  civilized,  yet  shed  its  influence 
over  the  world.  All  the  wisdom  of  the  ancients,  all  the  learn- 
ing of  Pagan  philosophy — was  represented  in  that  august  assem- 
bly before  which,  upon  the  hill  of  Athens,  Paul,  the  Apostle, 
stood  up  to  preach  the  "  Resurrection  and  the  Life."  All  the 
light  of  ancient  philosophy  was  there.  All  the  glory  of  art  was 
there  in  its  highest  perfection.  ,A11  the  resources  then  attained 
to  in  science  were  there.  Men  were  glorying  in  that  day,  as 
they  are  in  this,  in  their  material  progress  and  in  their  ideas. 
But  how  was  this  society  constituted  with  regard  to  slavery? 
Why,  my  friends,  in  that  ancient  Pagan  world,  we  read  that,  at 
the  time  when  there  were  sixty  thousand  inhabitants  in  the  city 
of  Athens,  the  capital  of  Greece,  there  were  forty  thousand 
slaves  and  only  twenty  thousand  freemen.  We  read  how,  in 
the  society  of  Sparta,  another  city  of  Greece,  the  slaves  had  so 
multiplied  that  the  masters  lived  in  constant  fear  lest  their  ser- 
vants— their  bondsmen — should  rise  up  in  their  power  and 
destroy  them.     We  read  of  Rome,  that  the  slaves  were  in  such 


'1  he   True  Emancipator.  537 

numbers,  that  when  it  was  proposed  in  the  Senate  that  they 
should  wear  a  distinct  dress,  it  was  immediately  opposed  on  the 
ground  that  if  they  wore  a  distinct  dress  they  would  come  to 
recognize  their  own  numbers  and  strength,  and  would  rise  and 
sweep  the  freemen  from  the  soil.  So  much  for  the  civilized 
nations.  What  do  we  know  of  the  barbarous  nations  ?  Why, 
Herodotus,  the  historian,  tells  us,  that,  on  one  occasion,  a 
nation  of  Scythians  went  forth  and  invaded  Media;  and,  when 
they  returned  after  a  successful  war,  flushed  with  triumph  and 
with  victory,  such  was  the  number  of  the  slaves  that  they  had 
enslaved,  from  the  misfortunes  of  war  and  other  causes,  that, 
actually,  when  they  returned  in  all  their  might,  they  found  that, 
in  their  absence,  their  slaves  had  revolted,  and  they  were  chased 
by  their  own  servants — their  own  slaves — from  their  own  coun- 
try. How  were  these  slaves  treated  ?  They  were  treated  thus. 
We  read  that  when  a  certain  Prefect  of  Rome,  Pedanius  Secun- 
dus,  was  murdered  by  one  of  his  slaves,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
following  the  law,  there  were  four  hundred  of  that  man's  bonds- 
men taken,  and  they  were  all  put  to  death  without  mercy, 
without  pity — four  hundred  innocent  men  for  the  fault  and 
the  crime  of  one.  Had  the  slave  any  rights  ?  None  whatever. 
Had  the  slave  any  privilege  or  recognition  of  any  kind  ?  None 
whatever.  His  life  and  his  blood  were  accounted  as  of  no 
value  ;  and,  what  was  still  worse,  the  highest  philosophers  of 
ancient  Greece  and  Rome,  writing  on  this  subject,  laid  down  as 
a  principle,  that  these  men  were  created  by  the  gods,  as  they 
called  them,  for  the  purpose  of  slavery  ;  that  they  came  injo 
this  world  for  no  other  purpose ;  that  they  had  no  souls  capable 
of  appreciating  anything  spiritual  ;  no  feelings  to  be  respected, 
no  eternal  nor  even  temporal  interests  to  be  consulted  ;  so  that 
a  man  who  had  the  misfortune  to  fall  into  slavery,  found  him- 
self not  only  enslaved  but  degraded. 

Such  was  the  state  of  the  world  when  the  Catholic  Church 
began  her  mission.  And  now,  what  was  the  first  principle  that 
the  Church  preached  and  laid  down  ?  The  first  emancipating 
principle  that  the  Catholic  Church  announced  was  this:  She 
proclaimed  that  slavery  was  no  degradation  ;  that  a  man  might 
be  enslaved  and  yet  not  be  degraded.  This  was  the  first  prin- 
ciple by  which  the  Church  of  God  recognised  the  nobility  of 
the  soul  of  man — no   matter   from  what    race  he    sprang  ;  no 


538  The  Catholic  Church 

matter  what  misfortune  may  have  fallen  upon  him — that  he 
might  be  enslaved,  nay,  more,  that  his  very  slavery  might  bring; 
its  own  specific  duties  upon  him  ;  but  that  slavery,  in  itself,  was 
no  degradation.  You  may  say  to  me,  perhaps,  this  was  a  false 
principle.  I  answer,  No ;  it  is  not  a  false  principle.  I  am  a 
slave,  yet  I  am  not  a  degraded  man  ;  I  am  a  slave,  for, 
many  years  ago,  I  swore  away,  at  the  foot  of  the  altar, 
my  liberty,  my  freedom,  and  my  will,  and  gave  them  up  to 
God.  Am  I,  therefore,  degraded  ?  No.  We  are  ail  slaves  in 
this  sense — that  the  Scriptures  tells  us  that  we  have  been 
bought  at  a  great  price  by  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  and,  there- 
fore, that  we  are  the  servants  and  bondsmen  of  Him  who 
bought  us.  But  who  will  say  that  such  slavery  as  this  is  deg- 
radation ?  No,  my  friends.  You  may,  perhaps,  say  to  me,  But 
we  all  admit  our  servitude  to  God.  Well,  this  is  precisely  the 
point  ;  and  St.  Paul,  proclaiming  the  first  elements  of  the 
Church's  laws  and  doctrines  touching  slavery,  declared  that  even 
a  man  who  was  enslaved  by  his  fellow-man  was  no  longer  a 
slave — that  is,  in  the  sense  of  a  degraded  slave  ;  because  Al- 
mighty God,  through  His  Church,  recognized  that  man's  soul — 
recognized  his  feelings— and  commanded  him  to  be  faithful, 
even  as  a  slave — not  to  the  master,  as  to  a  man,  but  to  the 
master,  for  the  sake  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  as  reflecting  authority 
and  power  over  him.  These  are  the  express  words  of  the  Apos- 
tle ;  and  mark  how  clearly  they  bring  out  this  grand  principle. 
He  says :  "  Whosoever  are  servants  under  the  yoke,  let  them 
account  their  masters  worthy  of  all  honor,  lest  the  name  of  the 
Lord  and  His  doctrines  be  blasphemed."  He  goes  on  to  say : 
"You,  slaves,  obey  those  that  are  your  masters  according  to  the 
flesh,  with  fear  and  trembling,  in  the  simplicity  of  your  hearts, 
as  to  Jesus  Christ  Himself,  not  serving  to  the  eye,  as  it  were 
pleasing  men,  but  as  the  servants  of  Christ,  doing  the  will  of 
God  from  the  heart,  with  a  good  will,  serving  as  to  the  Lord,  not 
to  man." 

This  was  the  first  grand  element  of  the  Church's  emancipa- 
tion. She  removed  from  the  slave  the  degradation  of  his  slavery, 
by  admitting  that,  slave  as  he  was,  he  could,  in  obeying  his 
master,  obey  God — transfer  his  allegiance,  as  it  were,  from  the 
man  to  the  principle  of  God's  authority  reflected  in  that  man ; 
and  thus  serve,  not  as  to  the  eye  of  man,  but  to  the  eye  of 
Jesus  Christ. 


The   True  Emancipator.  539 

Secondly,  the  Apostle  declares  that  slavery  ceased  to  be  a 
degradation  when  the  master  and  the  owner  was  as  much  a  slave 
as  his  bondsman.  And  this  he  declares  in  this  principle  :  "  And 
you,  masters,"  he  says,  "  do  the  same  thing  as  your  slaves,  for- 
bearing threatening,  knowing  that  the  Lord,  both  of  them  and 
of  you,  is  in  heaven,  and  that  there  is  no  respect  of  persons 
with  Him."  "Masters,"  he  adds,  "do  to  your  servants  that 
which  is  just  and  equal,  knowing  that  you,  also,  have  a 
Master  who  is  in  heaven."  The  Pagan  idea  was  that  the  master 
was  the  absolute  governor  and  ruler  of  his  slave — the  lord  ot 
life  and  death — and  that  that  slave  was  created  to  do  his  will ; 
and  that  for  his  treatment  of  his  servant  he  was  not  responsible 
before  God.  The  Apostle,  in  the  name  of  the  Church,  imposes 
upon  the  master  and  slave  the  common  servitude  to  the  one 
God  ;  and  then  he  lays  down  the  third  great  element,  by  which 
he  relieves  slavery  of  its  degradation,  when  he  says:  "  There  is, 
in  Christ,  neither  bondsman  nor  freeman,  neither  Jew  nor 
Gentile,  neither  barbarian  nor  Scythian,  but  Christ,  the  Lord, 
in  all  ;  and  ye  are  all  one  in  Jesus  Christ." 

These,  my  friends,  were  the  first  words  of  consolation,  of 
hope,  of  manly  sympathy  with  his  fellow-men  in  slavery,  that 
ever  came  from  the  lips  of  a  teacher,  religious  or  otherwise, 
from  the  world's  creation.  And  these  came  from  the  lips  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  speaking  through  her  divinely  inspired  Apostle. 
Therefore,  I  claim  for  her,  that,  in  the  beginning,  she  was  faith- 
ful to  her  mission,  and  that  she  proclaimed  that  she  came  to 
console  the  afflicted  in  his  slavery,  and  to  lift  from  him  the 
weight  of  the  degradation  which  was  upon  him.  Then,  the  his- 
tory of  the  Church  began.  You  all  know,  my  dear  friends,  how, 
five  centuries  after  the  Church  was  established,  the  barbarians — 
the  Goths,  the  Vandals,  the  Alans,  and  all  these  terrible  nations 
from  the  North,  swept  down  over  the  Roman  empire,  and  de- 
stroyed everything :  broke  up  society  ;  reduced  it  to  its  first 
chaotic  elements  ;  and  slavery  was  the  universal  institution  all  the 
world  over.  Every  nation  had  it.  The  captive  that  was  taken 
in  war  lost  his  liberty,  not  for  a  day,  but  for  ever.  The  man 
who  was  oppressed  with  debt  was  taken  for  his  debt,  and  sold 
into  slavery.  The  Church  of  God  alone  was  able  to  meet  these 
barbarians,  to  confront  them,  and  to  evangelize  to  them  her 
gospel  of  liberation  ;  and  to  soften,  and  gradually  to  diminish, 


540  The  Catholic  Church 

until  at  length,  she  all  but  destroyed  the  existence  of  this  un- 
just slavery.  The  Church  of  God — the  Catholic  Church,  was 
the  only  power  that  these  barbaric  nations  would  respect.  The 
Pope  of  Rome  was  the  great  upholder  of  the  principles  of 
liberty;  because  liberty  means  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the 
assertion  of  right  for  every  man,  and  the  omnipotence  of  the 
law,  which  insures  him  his  right,  and  defines  that  right.  And 
how  did  the  Pope  act ;  and  how  did  the  Church  carry  out  her 
mission  ?  My  friends,  we  find  that  from  the  fifth  century — from 
the  very  time  that  the  Church  began  to  be  known  and  had  com- 
menced to  make  her  influence  felt  amongst  the  nations — among 
the  very  first  ordinances  that  she  made,  were  some  for  the  re- 
lief of  the  slave.  She  commanded,  for  instance,  under  pain  of 
censure,  that  no  master  was  to  put  his  slave  to  death  ;  and  you 
may  imagine  under  what  depths  of  misery  society  was  plunged, 
and  from  what  a  state  of  things  the  Catholic  Church  has  saved 
the  world — when  I  tell  you  that  one  of  the  ordinances  of  a 
council  in  the  sixth  century  was,  that  if  any  lady  (now  just 
imagine  this  to  yourselves ! ) — being  offended  by  any  of  her 
slaves,  or  vexed  by  them,  put  the  slave  to  death,  that  she  was 
to  undergo  several  long  years  of  public  penance  for  the  crime 
that  she  had  committed.  What  a  state  of  society  it  was,  when 
a  delicate  lady,  arraying  herself,  perhaps,  for  an  evening  meet- 
ing— a  ball,  or  a  party — with  her  maiden  slaves  around  her, 
dressing  her,  adding  ornament  to  ornament — that  if  one  of  them 
made  a  slight  mistake,  the  delicate  lady  was  able  to  turn  round 
— as  we  read  in  the  Pagan  historians,  and  as  Roman  ladies  did 
— and  thrust  her  ivory-hilted  dagger  into  the  heart  of  her  poor 
slave,  striking  her  dead  at  her  feet.  The  only  power  that  was 
recognized  on  the  earth,  to  make  that  lady  responsible — the  only 
power  that  she  would  listen  to — the  only  representative  of  the 
law  that  was  thus  to  fling  its  protection  over  the  unhappy 
slave,  was  the  power  of  the  mighty  Church,  that  told  that  lady, 
that  if  she  committed  herself  to  such  actions  as  these,  outside 
the  Church's  gates  she  should  kneel,  in  sackcloth  and  ashes  ;  that 
she  should  kneel  far  away  from  the  altar  and  the  sacrifice ;  that 
she  should  kneel  there  until,  after  long  years  of  weeping  and  peni- 
tence, as  a  public  penitent,  she  was  to  be  permitted  to  crawl  into 
the  church,  and  take  the  place  of  the  penitent  nearest  the  door 
And  so,  in  like  manner,  we  find  the  Church,  in  the  progress 


The   True  Emancipator.  r^i 

of  ages,  making  laws,  that  if  any  slave  offended  his  master,  and, 
if  the  master  wished  to  punish  him,  then  and  there,  by  some 
terrible  form  of  aggravated  punishment,  and  if  that  slave  fled 
from  his  master,  there  was  only  one  place  where  he  could  find 
security,  and  that  was  the  Church.  For  the  Church  declared 
that  the  moment  a  slave  crossed  her  door  and  entered  into  her 
sanctuary,  that  moment  the  master's  hand  was  stayed,  and  the 
slave  was  out  of  his  power,  until  the  case  was  fairly  tried,  and 
proportionate  and  just  punishment  imposed,  as  would  be  im- 
posed on  any  other  man  who  committed  the  same  offence. 

Again,  we  find  the  same  Church,  in  the  course  of  ages,  im- 
posing a  threat  of  excommunication  upon  any  man  who  should 
capture  a  manumitted  or  emancipated  slave,  and  reduce  him  to 
slavery  again.  Further  on,  we  find  the  same  Church  making  a 
law  that  when  a  bishop,  or  a  cardinal,  or  a  great  ecclesiastic 
died,  all  those  who  were  in  servitude  to  him  should  be  immedi- 
ately freed.  These  were  the  freedmen  of  the  Church,  as  they 
were  called. 

But,  you  may  ask,  why  didn't  she  abolish  slavery  at  once? 
And  this  is  the  accusation  that  is  made  against  the  Catholic 
Church,  even  by  such  a  man  as  Guizot,  the  great  French  states- 
man and  philosopher;  who  indeed  admits  that  the  Catholic 
Church,  in  her  action,  in  her  genius,  always  tried  to  preach  the 
subject  of  emancipation  ;  but  why  did  she  not  do  it  at  once  ?  I 
answer,  the  Church  of  God  is  the  only  power  upon  earth  which 
at  all  times  has  known  how  to  do  good,  and  to  do  it  wisely  and 
justly.  It  is  not  enough  to  do  a  good  thing  because  it  is  good : 
it  must  be  well  done;  it  must  be  wisely  done;  there  must  be 
no  injury  accompanying  the  doing  of  it ;  nor  no  injustice  stain- 
ing the  act.  The  Church  of  God  could  not,  from  the  very  be- 
ginning, have  emancipated,  without  doing  a  grave  injustice  to 
the  society  which  she  would  disturb,  to  the  owners  of  these 
slaves,  against  whom  she  might  be  accused  of  robbery ;  but  the 
greatest  injustice  of  all  to  the  poor  slaves  themselves,  who  were 
not  prepared  for  the  gift  of  freedom.  And  therefore,  taking 
her  own  time,  proclaiming  her  principles,  acting  upon  them 
strongly,  yet  sweetly,  and  drawing  to  her  every  interest  ;  con- 
ciliating men's  minds  ;  creating  public  opinion  amongst  society; 
trying  to  save  every  man  from  injustice  ;  and,  in  the  meantime, 
preparing  mankind  by  faith  and  by  sanctity  for  the  gift  of  free 


542  The  Catholic  Church 

dom — she  labored  slowly,  patiently,  but  most  efficaciously  in 
the  great  work  of  emancipation.  For,  my  friends,  there  are 
two  injustices,  and  grave  injustices,  which  may  accompany  this 
great  act  of  emancipation.  There  is  the  injustice  which  may 
affect  the  whole  of  society,  may  break  up  public  order,  may 
ruin  interests  ;  and  that  is  the  injustice  which  a  sudden  and  a 
rash  emancipation  inflicts  upon  the  society  upon  which  it  falls. 
For  instance,  as  in  Europe,  in  the  early  middle  ages,  slaves 
who,  according  to  St.  Augustine,  were  enslaved,  not  from  any 
inherent  right  of  man  over  his  fellow-man,  but  in  punishment  for 
their  own  sins — these  slaves  formed  a  great  portion  of  the  pub- 
lic property.  Nearly  one-half  of  mankind  were  enslaved  to  the 
other.  The  consequence  was  that  the  disposition  of  property 
was  affected  by  them ;  that  the  tillage  and  cultivation  of  the 
land  depended  upon  them  ;  that,  in  fact,  the  status  and  condition 
of  the  half  who  owned  the  slaves  would  be  affected  ;  so  that  by 
a  sudden  and  rash  emancipation,  the  freeman  of  to-day  would 
become  a  slave,  in  the  poverty  and  in  the  unexpected  privation 
and  misery  that  would  come  upon  him  by  the  loss  of  all  that  he 
possessed  in  this  world.  Was  that  injustice  to  be  done  ?  No, 
because  it  would  defeat  its  own  end.  The  end  of  all  society  is 
peace  and  happiness.  The  end  of  all  society  is  concord  and 
mutual  straining  to  one  end — each  man  helping  his  fellow-man  ; 
and  the  Church,  was  too  wise  to  throw  such  an  element  of  uni- 
versal discord  amongst  all  the  other  dissensions  that  were  tear- 
ing the  heart  of  the  world  in  those  days,  to  throw  in  the  ele- 
ment of  dissension,  and  to  set  one-half  the  world  against  the 
other. 

But  far  gi  eater  is  the  injustice  which  is  done  to  the  poor  slave 
himself  by  a  sudden,  an  unexpected,  and  a  sweeping  emancipa- 
tion. For,  my  friends,  next  to  Divine  grace  and  faith,  the 
highest  gift  of  God  to  man  is  freedom.  Freedom !  sacred  lib- 
erty ! — sacred  liberty !  within  these  consecrated  walls — even  as 
a  priest  I  say,  that  sacred  freedom  is  a  high  gift  of  God  ;  but 
the  history  of  our  race  tells  us  that  it  is  a  gift  that  has  at  all 
times  been  most  fatally  abused  ;  and  the  poet  says,  with  bitter 
truth,  that  at  an  early  age  he  was  left 

"  Lord  of  himself — that  heritage  of  woe." 

Liberty — lordship  over  oneself— unfettered  freedom  is,  in  most 


The   True  Emancipator.  543 

cases,  a  "  heritage  of  woe,"  and  especially  when  a  man  does  not 
understand  what  it  means,  and  is  not  prepared  for  its  legitimate 
exercise.  What  is  liberty?  that  sacred  word,  so  often  used,  so 
frequently  abused,  so  little  understood.  Ah,  my  friends,  what 
is  liberty?  In  our  days  men  fall  into  two  most  fatal  errors  ; 
they  have  a  false  idea  of  religious  liberty,  and  they  have  a  false 
idea  of  civil  liberty.  The  false  idea  of  religious  liberty  is,  that 
it  consists  in  unfettered  freedom  for  every  man  to  believe  what- 
ever he  likes,  and  the  false  idea  of  civil  liberty  is  that  it  consists 
in  unfettered  freedom  for  every  man  to  do  as  he  likes.  A  nation 
is  said  to  have  religious  liberty  when  every  man  believes  what- 
ever notion  of  religion  comes  into  his  head  ;  and  consequently 
there  are  as  many  sects  as  there  are  religions.  Men  say, 
"Grand!  glorious!  this  is  religious  liberty!"  But  yesterday 
there  was  only  one  faith  in  Italy,  for  instance ;  to-day  we  hear 
men  boasting  :  "  Thirty  thousand  hearers,  ten  thousand  preach- 
ers," of  the  new  evangelical  Church  of  Italy,  and  so  on  ;  and  in 
twenty  years  time,  if  this  goes  on,  we  shall  have  Italy  broken 
up  into  Quakers,  and  Shakers,  and  Baptists,  and  Anabaptists, 
and  all  sorts  of  religious  sects.  Is  this  religious  liberty  ?  Men 
say  it  is.  Well,  if  this  be  religious  liberty,  all  I  can  say  is  that 
the  definition  that  Christ,  our  Lord,  gave  of  religious  liberty  is 
wrong,  for  He  said ;  "  You  shall  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth 
shall  make  you  free."  It  will  follow  from  this  that  the  more  any 
nation  or  people  approach  to  unity  of  thought,  the  more  they 
approach  to  liberty,  provided  that  one  thought  represent  the 
truth  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Civil  liberty  is  also  misunderstood.  Many  imagine,  now-a- 
days,  that  the  essence  of  civil  liberty  is  the  power  to  rise  up  at 
any  time  and  create  a  revolution — rise  up  against  the  rulers  and 
governors — against  the  fixed  form  of  constitutional  law — and 
upset  everything.  That  is  the  idea,  for  instance — the  popular 
idea,  unfortunately — now  in  the  minds  of  many  in  Europe.  In 
France,  for  example,  nearly  every  man  that  knows  how  to  read 
and  write  has  a  copy  of  a  constitution  in  his  pocket,  which  he 
has  drawn  out  himself,  to  be  the  future  constitution  of  France, 
and  he  is  prepared  to  go  out  and  stand  on  the  barricades  and 
fight  for  his  constitution,  and  kill  his  neighbor  for  it.  The  idea 
of  liberty,  too,  which  has  taken  possession  of  the  minds  of  man)-, 
seems  to  lie  in  this — that  every  man  can  do  as  he  likes,  and 


544  The  Catholic  Church 

what  he  likes.  Ah  !  if  this  were  brought  home  to  us  ;  if  it  were 
brought  home  to  us  that  every  man  could  do  as  he  liked  ;  that 
we  could  be  assaulted  and  assailed  at  every  hand's  turn;  that 
every  man  should  go  out  with  his  life  in  his  hand ;  that  there 
was  no  protection  for  a  man  against  his  neighbor  who  was 
stronger;  and  any  man  who,  boasting  of  his  power,  says:  "I 
want  your  money — I  want  your  means — I  am  able  to  take  it, 
and  I  am  at  liberty  to  take  it ;  because  liberty  consists  in  every 
man  doing  as  he  likes ;"  how  would  you  like  this  liberty,  my 
friends  ?  '  No ;  the  essence  of  liberty  lies  here ;  the  essence  of 
liberty  lies  in  recognizing  and  defining  every  man's  right,  no 
matter  what  he  is,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest  in  the  state. 
Let  every  man  know  his  own  rights,  be  they  great  or  small,  be 
they  limited  or  otherwise ;  let  every  man  have  the  rights  that 
are  just  and  reasonable;  let  him  know  his  rights;  don't  keep 
him  in  ignorance  of  them  ;  define  them  for  him  by  law,  no  matter 
what  position  he  holds  in  society ;  and  when  every  man's  rights 
are  defined  and  recognized,  and  incorporated  in  law,  let  that 
law  be  put  up  on  high  ;  put  it,  if  you  will,  upon  the  very  altar  ; 
and  let  every  man  in  the  state — president,  king,  emperor,  gen- 
eral, soldier,  civilian — let  every  man,  high  or  low,  bow  down 
before  the  omnipotence  and  the  supremacy  of  that  law.  Let 
that  law  be  there  to  define  every  man's  rights,  and  to  secure 
them  to  him,  and  let  every  man  know  that  as  long  as  he  keeps 
himself  within  the  exercise  of  his  own  rights,  as  defined  by  law, 
no  power  can  touch  him,  no  man  can  infringe  upon  him.  Leave 
him  free  in  the  exercise  of  these  rights;  that  is  liberty,  the 
supremacy  of  the  law,  the  omnipotence  of  law,  the  law  which  is 
the  expression  of  matured  reason  and  of  authority,  respecting 
and  defining  every  man's  rights.  Far  more  free  is  the  man  who 
is  only  able  to  do  this  thing  or  that,  but  knows  that  he  can  do 
them — that  knows  that  these  are  his  rights,  and  no  man  can 
prevent  him  from  exercising  them — than  the  man  who  has  an 
undefined  freedom,  which  is  not  preserved  or  secured  to  him  by 
any  form  of  defined  law 

This  is  civil  liberty.  And  so  it  is  as  great  a  mistake  to  say, 
"  I  can  do  what  I  like,  therefore  I  am  free ;  I  have  civil  liberty ;" 
as  to  say,  "  I  can  believe  what  I  like,  therefore  I  have  religious 
liberty."  No,  it  is  not  true.  Dogma,  the  truth  of  God,  does 
not  leave  us  at  liberty.     It  appeals  to  us,  and  we  are  bound  to 


The   True  Emancipator.  545 

open  our  minds  to  let  into  our  intelligence  the  truth  of  God. 
Any  man  who  refuses  it  commits  a  sin.  We  are  not  at  liberty 
to  refuse  it.  -The  law  appeals  to  us,  we  are  not  at  liberty  to 
disobey  it.  The  quintessence  of  civil  freedom  lies  in  obeying  the 
law;  the  quintessence  of  religious  freedom  lies  in  acknowledging 
the  truth. 

And  now,  my  friends,  this  being  the  case,  I  ask  you  what 
greater  injustice  can  you  do  to  a  man  than  to  give  him  that  lib- 
erty, that  unlimited  freedom,  without  first  telling  him  his  rights, 
defining  his  rights,  establishing  those  rights  by  law,  and  without 
teaching  that  man  that  he  must  respect  the  law  that  protects 
him,  that  he  must  move  within  the  sphere  or  circle  of  his  rights, 
and  content  himself  in  this  ?  What  greater  injustice  can  you  do 
to  society  or  to  a  man  himself,  than  to  give  him  freedom  with- 
out defining  what  his  rights  are?  In  other  words,  is  not  the 
gift  of  liberty  itself  a  misnomer?  Is  it  not  simply  an  absurdity 
to  say  to  a  man,  "  You  are  free  !"  when  that  man  does  not  know 
what  is  meant  by  the  word  freedom?  Look  at  the  history  of 
emancipation,  and  will  you  not  find  this  to  be  the  case?  The 
States  have  emancipated  just  as  the  Church  has  emancipated  ; 
but  with  this  difference — that  the  Church  prepared  the  slave 
before  she  gave  him  freedom  ;  taught  him  his  rights,  taught  him 
his  responsibilities,  taught  him  his  duties;  and  then,  taking  the 
chains  off  his  hands,  said  :  "You  are  a  free  man.  Respect  your 
rights,  move  in  the  sphere  of  your  duties,  and  bow  down  before 
the  law  that  has  made  you  free."  The  State  has  not  said  this. 
A  few  years  ago  England  emancipated  the  black  population  of 
Jamaica;  a  sweeping  emancipation.  The  negroes  were  not  pre- 
pared for  it,  they  did  not  understand  it.  What  was  the  first  use 
they  made  of  their  liberty?  The  first  use  that  they  made  of 
their  liberty  was  to  fling  aside  the  hoe,  the  sickle,  the  spade, 
every  implement  of  labor,  and  sit  down  idly,  to  famish  and 
starve  in  the  land. 

Now,  amongst  the  duties  of  man,  defined  by  every  law,  the 
first  duty  is  labor — work.  The  only  respectable  man  in  this 
world  is  the  man  who  works.  The  idler  is  not  a  respectable 
man.  If  he  were  seated  upon  great  Caesar's  throne,  and  there  he 
would  be  an  idler,  I  would  have  no  respect,  but  only  contempt  for 
him.  This  was  the  first  use  that  the  negro  population  of  Jamaica 
made  of  their  freedom.    What  was  the  consequence  ?   That  their 

35 


546  The  Catholic  Church 

state  to-day,  after  many  years  of  emancipation,  is  one  of  absolute 
misery;  whilst,  during  the  time  they  were  slaves  they  were  living 
in  comparative  comfort.  Because,  small  as  the  circle  of  their  rights 
was,  strictly  defined  as  it  was,  still  it  had  its  duties  ;  they  knew 
theii  duties ;  they  knew  the  law ;  they  were  protected  in  the 
exercise  of  their  duties  ;  and  the  consequence  was  they  were  a 
thriving  people.  Look  to  the  Southern  States  of  this  Union. 
You  have  emancipated  your  negro  population  with  one  sweeping 
act  of  emancipation.  I  need  not  tell  you  that  by  so  doing  (I 
do  not  wish  to  speak  politics ;  I  do  not  wish  to  enter  upon  this 
question  in  anyway  that  would  be,  perhaps,  insolent  in  a  stranger 
— but  this  I  do  say) — that  in  that  sweeping  emancipation,  though 
you  did  what  the  world  may  call  a  grand  and  a  glorious  thing, 
you  know  well,  gentlemen,  how  many  you  deprived  of  the  very 
means  of  subsistence  by  it,  and  what  misery  and  poverty  you 
brought  upon  many  families  by  it,  and  how  completely,  for  a 
time,  you  shattered  the  framework  of  society  by  it.  Have  you 
benefited  the  slave  population  by  it? — by  this  gift  of  freedom— - 
a  glorious  gift,  a  grand  gift,  provided  that  the  man  who  receives 
it  knows  what  it  is ;  provided  the  man  who  receives  it  is  pre 
pared  to  receive  it,  and  use  it  as  he  ought.  But,  either  to  the 
white  man  or  the  colored  man  the  gift  of  freedom  is  a  fatal  gift 
unless  he  knows  how  to  use  it.  Did  you  prepare  these  men  for 
that  freedom  before  you  gave  it  to  them  ?  Did  you  tell  them 
that  they  should  be  as  laborious  as  they  were  in  slavery  ?  that 
labor  was  the  first  duty  of  every  man  ?  Did  you  tell  them  that 
they  were  to  respect  the  rights  of  their  fellow-men,  to  whom, 
slaves  yesterday,  they  are  made  equals  to-day?  Did  you  tell 
them  that  they  were  not  to  indulge  in  vain,  idle  dreams  of 
becoming  a  privileged  class  in  the  land — governors  and  rulers  of 
their  fellow-men,  to  whom  the  law  only  made  them  constitution- 
ally and  politically  equal  ?  Did  you  tell  them  that  they  were 
not  to  attempt  instantly,  forcibly,  to  overstep  certain  barriers 
that  the  God  of  nature  set  between  them  ;  but  that  they  were 
to  respect  the  race  that  manumitted  and  emancipated  them  ? 
I  fear  you  did  not.  I  have  had  evidence  of  it.  What  use  have 
they  made  of  this  gift  of  freedom  ?  Ah  !  children  as  they  were, 
though  grown  into  the  fullness  of  material  manhood — children 
as  they  were,  without  education,  without  knowledge — what  use 
could  they  make  of  their  freedom !     What  use  do  you  and  I 


The   True  Emancipator.  c±y 

make  of  our  freedom  ?— we  who  are  born  free,  we  whose  educa- 
tion and  everything  surrounding  us,  from  our  infancy,  all  tend 
to   make  us   respect  and  use  well  that  freedom.     Is  there  that 
purity,  that  self-respect,  that  manly  restraint  over  a  man's  pas. 
sions— is  there  that  assertion  of  the  dominion  of  the  soul  over 
the  inferior  nature  stamped  upon  the  Christian  society  and  the 
white  society  of  the  world    to-day,  that  would   lead  them    to 
imagine  that  it  is  so  easy  for  a  poor  child  of  slavery  to  enter 
into  the  fullness  of  his  freedom  ?    I  fear  not.     Well,  my  friends, 
still  they  are  there  before  us.    The  dreams  of  the  political  econ- 
omist  will    not    teach   them    to  use  their  freedom.     The  vain, 
ambitious,  and,  I  will  add,  impious  purposes  and  theories  pro- 
pounded  by  those  who  would   insinuate  that  the  colored  man 
was  emancipated  for  the  purpose  of  a  commingling  of  races,  will 
not  teach  them  to  use  their  freedom.    The  ambitious  hopes  held 
out  of  ascendancy  before  them  will  not  teach  them  to  use  their 
freedom.     The  political  parties  that  would  make  use  of  them  for 
their  own  ends  will  never  teach  them  to  use  their  freedom.   You 
have  emancipated  them  ;  and  I  deny  that  they  are  free.     I  say 
that  they  are  slaves.     You  have  emancipated  them.     Tell  me, 
what  religious  freedom  have  you  given  them  ?     You  have  put 
an  open  Bible  into  the  hand  of  a  man  who  only  learned  to  read 
yesterday,  and  you  have  told  him,  with  bitter  sarcasm,  to  go 
and  find  the  truth  of  God  in  a  book  that  has  puzzled  the  greatest 
and  wisest  of  the  earth's  philosophers.     You  have  sent  him  in 
search  of  religion  in  a  book  that  has  been  quoted  by  every  false 
teacher  from  the  day  that  it  was  written,  by  prostituting  that 
sacred  inspired  word,  and  twisting  it  to  lend  a  color  to  his  argu- 
ments.    You  have  sent  teachers  to  them,  teachers  who  began 
their  lesson,  began  their  teaching,  by  declaring  that,  after  they 
had  labored  all  day,  they  might  have  been  mistaken  all  through  ; 
and  that  they  had   no  fixed,  immutable  truths  to  give  to  the 
poor  emancipated  mind.     You  know  it.     What  religious  free- 
dom have  you  given  them?     Have   you  touched    their  hearts 
with  grace  ?     You  have  given  them,  indeed,  forms  of  religion, 
which  you  boast  are  suited  to  them,  because  you  allow  these 
over-grown,  simple    children    to    bellow    and    to    cry  out  what 
seems  to  be  the  word  of  praise  and  of  faith.     Ah,  my  friends, 
it   is  not   this  corporeal   exercise  that  will  purify  their   hearts, 
strengthen   their  souls,  subdue   their  passions,  and   make  them, 


548  The  Catholic  Church 

first  of  all,  respect  themselves,  and  then  respect  their  fellow- 
citizens  of  the  land.  You  have  emancipated  them,  but  you 
have  not  freed  them.  They  shall  be  free  only  in  the  day  when 
these  poor  darkened  intelligences  shall  have  been  led  into  the 
full  light  of  God's  knowledge,  and  when  the  strong  animal  pas- 
sions of  a  race  that,  from  whatever  cause  it  be,  seems  to  have 
more  of  the  animal  than  many  other  races  of  mankind  ;  when 
their  strong  passions  are  subdued,  their  hearts  purified,  their 
souls  cleansed,  graces  received  to  be  prized  and  to  be  retained— 
then,  and  only  then,  will  you  have  emancipated  the  negro.  You 
have  not  done  it  as  yet.  But  it  is  the  Church's  work  to  do  it. 
It  is  her  mission  and  her  duty.  She  knows  that  He  who  came 
and  died  upon  the  cross,  died  not  only  for  you,  but  for  these 
children  of  the  mid-day  sun.  She  knows  that  every  soul  of 
these  colored  people  is  as  dear  to  the  heart  of  God  as  the 
proudest  and  the  best,  the  most  learned  and  the  most  refined 
amongst  you.  She  knows  that  if  she  can  only  make  a  truly 
faithful  Catholic  Christian  out  of  the  humblest  of  these  children 
of  the  desert,  that  she  will  have  made  something  more  noble — 
grander  and  greater — than  the  best  among  you,  if  you  be  sin- 
ners ;  and  she,  therefore,  sends  to  them  her  clergy,  her  conse- 
crated children — priests  and  nuns.  She  says  to  the  noblest  and 
best  in  the  land :  "  Arise,  go  forth  from  house  and  home,  from 
father  and  friends;  go,  seek  a  strange  land  and  strange  people  ; 
go  in  amongst  them  ;  go,  seek  the  toil  and  the  burning  heat  and 
the  burden  of  the  day  ;  go,  seek  the  man  whom  many  men 
despise;  kneel  down  at  his  feet  and  offer  him  Jesus  Christ." 
We  have  been  told  by  a  high  authority  that  this  is  an  act  of 
justice  which  England  offers — an  act  of  reparation  which 
Catholic  England  offers  to  America  ;  for,  great  as  has  been  the 
crisis  of  the  late  war,  the  slavery  which  was  in  America — the 
highest  ecclesiastical  authority  in  England  tells  us,  sanctioned 
by  the  voice  of  history — has  not  been  your  creation,  my  Amer- 
ican friends  :  it  was  England's  creation.  It  was  forced  upon 
you  ;  and  from  having  begun  it  became  a  necessity.  And  there- 
fore England  to-day  sends  her  children  ;  and  they  come  with 
humility,  but  with  earnestness  and  zeal,  and  they  say  to  you — 
to  you,  Catholics — to  you,  many  amongst  you — perhaps  a  vast 
majority  amongst  you — of  Irish  parentage  or  Irish  descent — she 
says  to  you,  "  Children  of  a  faithful  nation,  children  of  a  rac« 


The   True  Emancipator.  54.9 

that  has  always  been  intellectual  enough  to  recognize  the  one 
truth,  keen  enough  to  know  its  value,  energetic  enough  to  grasp 
it  with  a  firm  hand— lovers  as  you  have  been  of  freedom,  wor- 
shippers at  the  shrine  of  your  religious  and  your  national 
liberty— she  asks  you,  children  of  a  race  of  doctors,  of  martyrs, 
of  apostles,  to  lend  a  helping  hand  to  the  Catholic  Church  to- 
day, and  to  aid  her  to  emancipate  truly  those  who  have  obtained 
only  freedom  in  name,  and  to  complete  that  work  which  can  only 
be  done  by  a  touch  of  the  hand  of  Jesus  Christ." 

Your  presence  here  this  evening  expresses  your  sympathy 
with  the  high  and  noble  purpose  that  has  brought  these  children, 
the  consecrated  ones  of  the  Church  of  God,  to  this  country; 
and  they  appeal  to  you,  through  me — and  they  have  a  right  to 
appeal  to  you,  through  me,  and  I  have  a  right  to  speak  to  you 
in  this  cause  of  freedom  ;  for,  my  brethren,  I  wear  the  habit  of 
the  venerable  and  holy  Bartholomew  Las  Casas,  the  first  Domin 
ican  that  ever  landed  in  America,  in  the  very  train  of  Christo- 
pher Columbus  himself— the  first  man  that  raised  his  voice  to 
proclaim  for  the  poor  Indian  the  birthright  of  that  higher  free- 
dom that  consists  in  the  knowledge  and  the  grace  of  Jesus 
Christ.  We  only  ask  you  to  help  us  to  diffuse  that  knowledge 
and  that  grace — that  knowledge  which  is  the  freedom  of  the 
intellect — that  grace  which  is  the  freedom  of  the  will,  and 
without  which  double  freedom  there  is  no  emancipation  ; 
for  the  chains  may  fall  from  the  hand,  but  the  chain  is  still 
rivetted  upon  the  soul.  Freedom  is  a  sacred  thing;  but 
like  every  sacred  thing,  it  must  be  seated  in  the  soul  of  man. 
Bodily  freedom  is  as  nothing  unless  the  soul  be  emancipated 
by  the  Holy  Church  of  God.  Your  presence  here  this  evening 
attests  your  sympathy  with  this  great  work  ;  and,  O  my  friends, 
as  you  have  contributed  materially,  I  ask  you  to  contribute  also 
intellectually  and  spiritually — intellectually,  by  the  sympathy  of 
your  intelligence  with  the  labor  of  those  holy  priests,  and 
spiritually,  by  praying  to  God,  Who  came  to  emancipate  the 
world,  that  He  might  make  perfect  the  weak  and  inefficient 
action  of  mankind  and  of  the  State,  by  pouring  forth  His  spirit 
of  light  and  grace  amongst  these  poor  children  and  stranger* 
who  are  in  the  land. 


CHRISTIAN   CHARITY. 


{Lecture  delivered  in  the  Cathedral,  Newark,  N.  J.,  on  Monday  evening  June  3d, 
1872,  in  aid  of  the  Hospital,  in  charge  of  the  Sisters  of  the  Poor.J 

In  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost.     Amen. 


rjEAR  FRIENDS  :— Amongst  the  many  proofs  that  the 
Catholic  Church  offers  to  the  world  of  her  truth  and  of 
her  divine  mission,  one  of  the  strongest — though  an 
indirect  proof,  still  one  of  the  strongest — is  the  spirit 
of  charity  and  mercy  that  is  organized  within  her.  It  had  been 
prophesied  of  the  spouse  of  old,  that  the  Lord  God  had  organ- 
ized charity  in  her  (Ordinavit  in  me  caritateni).  It  had  been 
foretold  by  Christ  our  Lord,  and  emphatically,  that  the  attribute 
of  charity — of  mercy — was  to  be  the  countersign  of  His  elect. 
It  was  therefore  fitting  that  the  Church,  which  was  the  spouse 
of  Jesus  Christ,  should  have  an  organized  charity  and  mercy 
within  her,  and  that  they  should  shine  forth  on  her  hands,  as 
the  countersign  of  her  election,  who  was  destined  to  be  the 
mother  of  all  the  elect  of  God.  Therefore  it  is,  that  at  all 
times,  charity,  taking  the  form  of  mercy,  has  been  found  vivid 
and  true  in  the  Catholic  Church  ;  and  that  charity  which  beams 
forth  in  her  comes  before  us,  when  we  contemplate  her,  with  all 
the  attributes  of  Divine  beauty  which  we  find  in  the  charity  of 
Jesus  Christ  Himself.  You  know  that  I  am  come  before  you 
this  evening  to  speak  to  you  of  the  attributes  of  Christian  char- 
ity. It  is  not  so  much  of  the  necessity  of  charity  that  I  wish  to 
speak,  but  it  is  of  the  attributes  of  charity.     I  need  not  speak  to 


Christian  Charity.  55 1 

you  of  the  necessity  of  being  charitable  and  merciful.  Your 
presence  here  this  evening  attests  sufficiently  to  me  that  you 
recognize  the  necessity  of  charity.  But  that  you  may  know 
what  that  Divine  charity  is  which  is  in  the  Church,  and  which 
takes  the  form  of  mercy,  I  will  endeavor  to  describe  to  you 
some  of  its  attributes;  and  I  will  begin  by  asking  you,  in  the 
language  of  Scripture,  to  consider  and  to  recognize  what  form 
of  charity  it  is  that  the  Father  in  heaven  bestowed  upon  us, 
whereby  we  also  were  to  be  called — and  were  to  be — the  sons 
of  God.  That  form  of  the  Father's  love  is  Christ  Jesus  our 
Lord  ;  for  as  Christ  Himself  says,  "  God  so  loved  the  world  as 
to  give  his  only  begotten  Son."  Behold  the  Father's  gift  !  If 
you  would  know  therefore,  what  are  the  true  attributes,  and 
what  the  real  beauties  of  charity,  you  must  consider  charity  as 
it  exists  in  our  Divine  Lord  Himself.  Then  shall  you  sec  what 
are  the  attributes  of  Christian  charity.  Therefore  the  Evangel- 
ist said,  "  Behold  what  manner  of  charity  the  Father  hath  be- 
stowed upon  us,  that  we  should  be  called  and  should  be  the 
sons  of  God." 

Well,  first  of  all,  my  dear  friends,  certain  it  is  that  although 
faith  be  absolutely  necessary  to  salvation,  and  although  we  are 
saved  by  hope  ;  yet  neither  faith  nor  hope  will  bear  us  into  our 
everlasting  happiness  and  joy  hereafter,  unless  we  possess  char- 
ity, which  manifests  itself  in  mercy  to  the  poor.  "  By  this," 
says  our  Divine  Lord,  "  shall  all  men  know  that  ye  are  my  dis- 
ci-pies, if  you  love  one  another ;"  and  "  if  any  man  says  he 
loveth  God,  and  loveth  not  his  neighbor,  the  truth  is  not  in 
him."  But  elsewhere  the  same  Evangelist  tells  us  that  "  he 
that  hath  the  substance  of  this  world,  and  shall  see  his  brother 
in  need,  and  shall  shut  up  his  bowels  from  him,  how  doth  the 
charity  of  God  abide  in  him."  Therefore,  the  sign  by  which  we 
shall  know  whether  the  essential  charity  is  in  us,  is  the  manifes- 
tation of  this  Divine  principle  in  works  of  mercy.  The  prophet 
said,  "  I  will  espouse  thee  to  me  in  faith,  in  justice,  in  judg- 
ment, and  in  mercy,  and  in  commiserations."  So  much  for  the 
necessity  of  charity.  No  man  can  be  saved  without  it.  No 
man  can  say  he  is  the  son  of  God  unless  the  countersign  of 
mercy  be  upon  him.  No  man  can  pass  into  heaven  unless  he 
opens  the  golden  gates  of  that  heaven  to  himself  with  the  key 
of  mercy.     It  will  be  the  crucial  test  whereby  you  shall  be  found 


552.  Christian  Charity. 

deserving  of  eternal  glory,  that  the  countersign  of  mercy  be  on 
your  forehead,  and  the  works  of  charity  in  your  hands. 

What  manner  of  charity  do  we  find  in  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  ? 
What  are  the  attributes  of  His  charity?  I  answer,  principally 
four.  First  of  all,  the  charity  in  Christ  was  a  constant  and 
abiding  charity;  secondly,  it  was  compassionate  and  tender 
— a  most  loving  charity ;  thirdly,  it  was  active  and  efficacious 
*«—  a  working  charity;  fourthly,  it  was  universal,  embracing 
all  and  touching  all  with  the  same  loving  hand — a  Catholic 
charity.  Consider  these  four  in  Christ  before  we  come  to 
look  upon  them  in  the  charity  organized  in  His  holy  Church. 
First,  my  friends,  the  charity  of  our  Divine  Lord  was  constant. 
It  was  love  that  brought  Him  down  from  heaven  ;  it  was  mercy 
that  kept  Him  upon  the  earth  for  thirty-three  years;  it  was 
mercy  that  nailed  Him  to  the  cross.  He  came  down  from 
heaven  to  redeem  the  fallen  race  of  man.  He  devoted  Himself 
wholly  to  that  work  of  redemption.  No  other  thought  ever 
entered  into  the  mind  of  our  Lord ;  no  other  motive  pressed 
Him  to  action — save  the  one  thought,  the  one  motive  of  mercy. 
It  was  His  daily  action.  When  He  spoke  it  was  the  mercy 
of  light  given  to  man  ;  when  He  healed  their  sick,  it  was  still  the 
mercy  His  all-powerful  touch  brought  upon  them.  Thirty-three 
years  He  remained  upon  earth.  Was  that  necessary  for  man's 
salvation  ?  No  !  But  it  was  necessary  that  Christ  should  have 
a  time  to  pour  forth  His  infinite  mercy  in  His  daily  actions  on 
the  people.  They  came  to  Him  at  all  times.  When  He  was 
at  meat  they  rushed  in  to  Him,  just  as  Mary  Magdalene  rushed 
to  His  feet  as  He  sat  at  table.  They  came  to  Him  at  the  time 
when  He  was  supposed  to  take  His  rest,  just  as  Nicodemus 
came  "  at  the  midnight  hour."  They  pressed  upon  Him,  so 
that  St.  Mark  says  they  did  not  even  give  Him  time  to  eat 
bread — to  eat  His  meals.  And  did  He  ever  refuse  Himself  to 
them?  Did  He  ever  turn  away  from  them  and  say,  "this  is  not 
the  time  or  the  place  for  you  to  seek  Me?"  Did  He  ever  show 
the  slightest  inconstancy  or  uncertainty  in  His  mercy?  No! 
No  matter  who  came  to  Him,  or  at  what  time  or  place,  or  under 
what  circumstances,  He  was  always  equal  to  Himself.  That 
charity,  that  mercy  with  which  He  met  them  was  the  business 
of  his  life,  until  the  people  came  to  count  with  absolute  certainty 
upon  the  abiding  constancy  of  His  love,  and  came  to  Him  with 


Christian  Charity.  553 

theit  sick  a;»d  their  blind  and  their  palsied  and  their  dead,  per- 
fectly certain  that  His  charity  and  mercy  would  go  forth  from 
Him,  because,  in  truth,  that  was  the  very  life  of  God  ;  this  love 
which  was  not  an  exceptional  or  occasional  work  with  Him 
— not  merely  the  recreation  of  an  hour — it  was  the  business  of 
His  life;  it  was  His  very  life  itself.  He  brought  to  the  work 
of  mercy  the  infinite  constancy  of  God. 

Not  only,  however,  was  the  charity  of  Christ  constant ;  but 
it  was  also  a  most  tender  and  compassionate  form  of  love. 
Dearly  beloved  brethren,  here  it  is  that  we  get  a  glimpse  into 
the  inner  heart  of  our  Lord.  Here  it  is  that  we  contemplate 
the  virtue  of  charity,  of  mercy,  in  Him.  Here  it  is  that  we  see 
the  infinite  compassion  and  tenderness  of  His  most  loving 
heart.  He  invariably  surrounds  each  act  of  His  mercy  with 
every  sweetest  attribute  of  tenderness  and  love.  For  instance, 
when  upon  the  mountain,  He  had  five  thousand  people  around 
Him,  and  He  resolved  to  feed  them  ;  but,  before  He  multiplied 
the  bread,  He  turned  to  His  disciples  and  said:  "  I  have  com- 
passion upon  this  multitude,  and  I  will  not  send  them  away 
fasting,  lest  they  might  faint  by  the  way  ;  for  lo  !  they  have  re- 
mained with  me  three  days."  Not  content  with  feeding  them, 
He  prefaces  the  action  of  mercy  with  the  expression  of  com- 
passion, giving  vent,  as  it  were,  to  the  strong  feeling  of  a  loving 
Jeart.  Again,  when  He  was  approaching  the  city  of  Nairn,  a 
funeral  procesr ion  came  forth ;  a  young  man — the  only  son  of 
a  widow — whr  had  lost  him  in  her  old  age  ;  and  now,  with  dis- 
hevelled hair  and  streaming  eyes  and  with  the  loud  outcry  of 
despair,  she  mourned  that  the  staff  of  her  life  was  gone,  and 
the  hope  and  joy  of  her  old  age  taken  from  her,  as  she  followed 
her  only  child  to  the  grave.  But  the  moment  her  voice  fell 
upon  the  Saviour's  ear — the  moment  He  saw  her,  He  was 
touched  with  pity.  The  fountains  of  His  great,  glorious,  lov- 
ing heart  were  moved  within  Him  :  and  He  goes  to  the  woman 
and  lays  His  hand  upon  her  shoulder,  and  says  to  her  in  ac 
cents  of  thrilling  love  :  "  Woman,  weep  no  more."  He  dries  the 
mother's  tears,  and  then,  turning  to  the  man  on  the  bier,  He 
says,  "Young  man,  I  say  unto  thee,  arise."  And  the  evangelist 
tells  us,  that  when  the  young  man  arose,  our  Lord  took  him  in 
His  hands  and  gave  him  to  his  mother — placed  him  upon  her 
bosom,  and  then  stood  by  and  feasted  His  great  compassion 


554  Christian  Charity. 

and  the  tenderness  of  His  love  on  the  happiness  of  that  meet 
ing.     Such  was  the  heart  of  Jesus  Christ. 

On  another  occasion,  He  comes  to  Bethany.  Lazarus  was 
dead  four  days,  and  in  his  grave,  when  the  Master  appeared. 
And  they  went  into  the  house  and  told  Mary  the  Magdalen 
that  the  Master  was  come,  and  she  rushed  out  and  flung 
herself  heart-broken  at  His  feet — exclaiming ;  "  Lord,  if  Thou 
hadst  been  here,  my  brother  never  would  have  died  !  "  When 
He  looked  doW.  and  saw  this  woman  weeping  —  the  great 
sobs  bursting  from  her  breast  in  the  agony  of  grief,  Jesus  also 
wept.  Tears  came  from  His  eyes  and  fell  upon  the  head  of 
Mary  from  the  fountain  of  that  Divine  love  and  compassion. 
There  is  nothing  more  touching  in  all  Scripture  than  those  words 
"  and  Jesus  wept."  The  very  Jews  who  stood  around  were 
Amazed  to  see  the  compassion  of  the  Man.  They  were  not  used 
to  such  tenderness,  and  they  said  to  one  another,  "  Behold  !  how 
much  He  loved  him."  Such  was  the  heart  of  Jesus  Christ.  He 
used  to  heal  the  wounded  feelings  of  the  afflicted,  as  weli  as  to 
relieve  them :  and  entered  into  all  their  wants  and  minis- 
tered to  them ;  whilst  He  ministered  with  so  much  love  that  the 
manner  in  which  He  relieved  was  almost  greater  than  the  relief 
itself.  Thirdly,  the  charity  of  our  Lord  was  a  magnificent,  real, 
active  and  efficacious  charity.  He  did  not  love  in  word  and 
tongue  merely ;  He  loved  in  deed  and  truth.  He  does  not  con- 
tent Himself  with  saying,  "  I  have  compassion  on  the  multi- 
tude ;"  but  He  puts  His  hand  into  the  basket  and  takes  the 
bread  and  breaks  it,  and  multiplies  it,  and  gives  it  unto  them 
until  every  one  is  filled.  He  does  not  content  Himself  with 
saying  to  the  widowed  mother,  "  Weep  no  more  ;"  but  He  gives 
her  a  reason  to  cease  her  weeping,  for  He  raises  her  son  from 
the  dead  and  puts  him  upon  her  bosom.  He  does  not  content 
Himself  with  weeping  over  the  Magdalen  and  saying  to  her,  "  I 
am  the  Resurrection  and  the  Life  ;"  but  the  next  moment  sees 
Him  at  the  tomb  of  Lazarus,  and  the  silence  of  the  grave  hears 
a  voice — "  Lazarus,  come  forth" — and  Lazarus  did  come  forth 
out  of  his  grave  ;  and  He  gave  him  unto  his  sisters.  His  was  a 
mercy  that  never  tired  ;  a  mercy  that  met  every  form  of  misery, 
for  it  was  not  only  constant  and  gentle  and  compassionate,  effi- 
cacious and  active,  but  it  was  also  catholic  and  universal.  Every 
form  of  misery  which  came  before  Him  was  met  by  Him.    Now 


Christ  tan  Charity.  555 

ive  find  Him  opening  the  eyes  of  the  blind  ;  again,  we  find  Ilim 
lifting  up  the  helpless  and  the  lame;  again,  He  is  cleansing  the 
leper  or  raising  the  dead  :  at  another  time  confounding  the  pride 
of  the  Pharisees,  by  the  example  of  His  humility;  at  another 
time — the  greatest  work  of  all — when  He  received  the  sinner  with 
all  her  sins  upon  her,  and  in  these  words,  "  Thy  sins  are  forgiven," 
He  sent  her  forth  pure  as  an  angel  before  the  throne  of  God. 

These  arc  the  four  principal  attributes  of  that  charity  which 
existed  in  the  heart  of  Jesus  Christ.  When  Christ  our  Lord 
established  His  Church,  He  expressly  declares  to  us  that  He 
founded  her  in  all  strength,  in  all  beauty,  in  all  holiness  and 
truth.  He  expressly  declares  to  us  that  whatever  He  had  He 
gave  to  His  Church;  that  whatever  He  was  His  Church  was  to 
be.  It  has  been  written  of  that  Church,  "  Thou  wast  made 
exceeding  beautiful,  because  of  My  beauty  which  I  put  upon 
thee,"  saith  the  Lord.  Christ  we  find  fulfilling  this  when  He 
said  to  His  disciples,  all  power  in  Heaven  and  on  Earth  is  given 
to  Me  ;  and  now  I  say  to  you,  as  the  Father  sent  Me  so  do  I 
send  you  ;  as  I  am  the  true  light  that  enlighteneth  all  that  come 
into  the  world,  so  are  ye  sent  to  spread  that  light ;  and  the 
gates  of  hell  shall  never  prevail  against  that  Church;  as  I  am 
the  Omnipotent  of  God,  having  power  to  forgive  sins,  so  I  say 
to  you,  whose  sins  you  shall  forgive  shall  be  forgiven  them. 

But  amongst  the  many  gifts  He  bestowed  upon  His  Church, 
He  gave  her  that  charity  and  mercy  which  we  have  just  seen 
was  so  perfect  in  the  heart  of  our  Lord.  Therefore,  as  St.  Paul 
tells  us,  Christ  loved  His  Church,  and  gave  His  life  that  He 
might  present  her  to  Himself  perfect,  beautiful,  glorious,  not 
having  spot,  wrinkle,  stain,  or  any  such  thing,  but  all  perfect  in 
her  supernatural  beauty  ;  and  so,  fitted  to  be  the  spouse  of 
Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God.  Amongst  these  beauties  was  the 
beauty  of  charity,  like  His  own — because  it  is  written,  "  I  will 
espouse  thee  to  me  in  faith,  in  justice,  in  judgment,  and  in 
mercy  and  commiseration."  How,  therefore,  can  mercy  and 
charity  not  be  a  distinctive  of  that  Church  which  was  to  be  the 
Bride  of  Christ.  So,  therefore,  when  we  go  back  to  her  history, 
we  must  find  upon  her  records  that  attribute  of  charity  like  to 
His.  Do  we  find  it?  Oh,  my  dear  friends,  mercy  and  charity 
were  unknown  to  the  world  until  Jesus  Christ  founded  His 
Church — mercy  and  charity  were  unknown   to  the  world.     The 


55b  Christian  Charity. 

world  had  benevolence ;  the  record  of  the  world's  history  tells 
us  of  many  acts  of  grand  benevolence  performed,  now  and  then, 
by  the  Pagans  of  old  ;  we  are  told  of  many  instances  in  which 
they  showed  tenderness  of  heart  and  commiseration,  and  of 
many  in  which  they  were  generous  and  self-sacrificing  in  their 
efforts  to  befriend  their  fellow-men.  Remember  all  these  are 
fair  and  beautiful  adornments  of  the  natural  character  of  man. 
But  they  are  not  supernatural ;  they  are  not  divine,  nor  are  they 
the  mercy  which  Jesus  Christ  shall  require  of  the  soul  which 
enters  into  the  kingdom  of  His  bliss.  Why !  Because,  my  be- 
loved, the  charity  of  which  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  speaks,  is  a 
charity  which  must  spring  from  faith  and  be  animated  by 
hope ;  which  must  spring  from  faith,  because,  as  the  Apostle 
says,  "  And  now  there  remain  to  you  faith,  hope,  and  charity, 
these  three :  but  the  greatest  of  these  is  charity."  Unless  faith 
be  there,  pointing  out  the  way  of  all  our  charity,  it  may  be  gen- 
tleness,  it  may  be  kindness  of  heart,  it  may  be  what  you  will ; 
but  it  is  not  Christian  charity.  What  does  faith  tell  us  to  guide 
our  charity?  Our  faith  tells  us  that  we  are  bound  to  minister 
to  Jesus  Christ,  our  Lord; — to  do  homage  to  Him,  no  matter  in 
what  disguise  or  form  we  find  Him.  Our  faith  teaches  us  that 
blessed  are  they  that  minister  unto  Him,  for  they  shall  be  min 
istered  unto  by  Him. 

Now,  where  shall  we  find  Him,  so  that  our  ministration  shall 
reach  Him  ?  In  Heaven  He  commands  our  adoration  ;  but  we 
cannot  minister  to  Him  in  our  mercy.  In  the  blessed  Eucharist 
He  commands  purity  of  soul,  a  fervent  approach,  adoration  ; 
but  we  cannot  minister  to  Him  in  our  mercy.  There  is  one 
form — one  and  only  one — in  which  Christ  our  Lord  presents 
Himself  so  that  He  becomes  an  object  of  mercy,  and  that  is 
when  He  disguises  Himself  in  the  form  of  the  poor  and  needy; 
and  then  I  say  unto  you,  "  blessed  is  he  that  understandeth  con- 
cerning the  needy  and  the  poor,"  for  inasmuch  as  ye  have  done 
it  unto  one  of  these  little  ones  ye  have  done  it  unto  Him.  And 
in -the  day  of  judgment  He  shall  say  to  the  souls  of  the  just :  "  I 
was  hungry  and  ye  broke  your  bread  and  gave  Me  to  eat ;  I  was 
naked  and  ye  clothed  Me  ;  I  was  sick  and  ye  lifted  up  My  head 
and  visited  Me."  And  when  the  just  shall  say,  "  Where,  oh 
Lord  !  did  we  see  Thee  hungry  and  feed  Thee,  or  poor  and  re- 
lieved Thee?"     Then  the  Lord  shall  say  to  the  soul  of  the  just 


Christian  Charity.  557 

one  :  "  Dost  thou  recognize  these?"  "  Oh,  yes,  Lord  !  I  know 
them.  I  saw  them  on  earth  famishing,  dying,  sick,  and  in 
their  misery."  Then  He  will  say  :  "  I  swear  to  you  that  what- 
soever you  did  to  these,  you  did  it  to  Me." 

Behold,  then,  what  faith  teaches  us.  Faith  establishes  this 
principle — that  in  serving  the  poor  we  minister  unto  Jesus 
Christ — that  in  ministering  to  the  poor  we  are  working  out  our 
own  salvation,  for  our  salvation  depends  on  our  service  to  Jesus 
Christ.  What  does  our  hope  tell  us  concerning  this  work  of 
mercy?  Our  hope  tells  us  that  every  promise  that  Almighty 
God  has  made  of  future  glory  and  bliss  to  man,  is  all  bound  up 
with  the  condition  of  mercy.  What  do  you  hope  for  ?  Pardon 
for  your  sins  ;  the  highest  mercy  of  God.  God  tells  us  in  the 
Scripture,  "  Redeem  your  sins  by  alms  and  your  iniquity  by 
works  of  mercy  to  the  poor."  Do  you  look  forward  to  eternal 
light  and  glory?  Isaias  says,  "  Deal  thy  bread  to  the  hungry 
and  bring  the  needy  and  the  harborless  into  thy  house.  When 
thou  seest  one  naked,  cover  him  ;  and  despise  not  thine  own 
flesh.  Then  shall  thy  light  break  forth  in  the  darkness  ;  and 
thy  justice  shall  go  before  thy  face,  and  the  Lord  shall  fill  thy 
soul  with  brightness  and  give  thee  rest  continually."  What 
wonder,  then,  that  when  the  very  point  to  which  every  Chris- 
tian man  is  tending — namely  the  moment  of  judgment,  comes 
before  our  eyes — when  every  Christian  man  is  asking  himself, 
"  Shall  I  pass  through  that  golden  gate,  into  the  inner  glory  of 
God,  or  shall  I  be  cast  away  into  the  flames  of  hell  forever  ? ' 
the  angel  of  mercy  should  appear  to  decide  the  great  question, 
and  to  open  or  close  forever.  Oh,  awful  moment  !  Oh,  fearful 
question  !  Yet,  in  the  moment  when  our  fate  shall  hang  in  that 
balance  which  lies  before  us  all ;  which  no  man  can  escape  ;  in 
that  terrible  ordeal  which  every  man  amongst  us  must  pass 
through,  our  Lord  will  say,  "  Show  Me  your  mercy.  You  wish 
to  pass  into  My  glory :  show  Me  how  you  have  purchased  it  by 
works  of  mercy  to  the  poor.  I  was  hungry  and  you  gave  Me 
not  to  eat ;  thirsty  and  you  gave  Me  not  to  drink  ;  sick  and  you 
would  not  visit  Me  nor  comfort  Me  ;  for,  as  often  as  you  have 
refused  this  unto  the  poor  you  have  refused  it  unto  Me. 
Depart  now,  thou  accursed,  unto  everlasting  flames."  Oh  !  how 
sacred  is  the  exercise  of  that  charity  and  mercy,  the  mo- 
ment we  see  it  through  the  eyes  of  faith  and  hope;  and  unlesa 


558  Christian  Charity 

it  is  thus  seen  through  the  eyes  of  faith  and  hope,  it  may  be 
a  human  virtue,  but  it  is  not  the  divine  virtue  of  charity. 

Now  this  virtue,  exalted  and  divine,  do  we  find  in  the  very 
first  days  of  the  Church.  She  alone  could  create  this  charity  of 
which  I  speak.  And  why  ?  Because  she  alone  has  the  knowl- 
edge of  Jesus  Christ — she  alone  can  recognize  Him — she  alone 
has  the  commission  to  preach  His  word  and  to  evangelize  His 
name  unto  the  nations — she  alone  has  the  treasure  surpassing  all 
others,  of  His  own  divine  presence  in  her  bosom.  Therefore, 
she  alone  can  create  the  virtue  which  acknowledges  the  claims  of 
Him  in  the  poor,  and  strains  to  serve  Him  through  them.  From 
the  first  days  of  the  Church's  existence  do  we  find  that  mercy 
shining  upon  her.  During  the  first  three  hundred  years  of  the 
Church's  existence,  when  to  be  a  Catholic  meant  to  be  sentenced 
to  death  ;  when  Christians  were  obliged  to  hide  in  the  catacombs 
and  caves  of  the  earth — for  to  show  themselves  was  to  accept 
instant  destruction — even  then,  the  record  of  the  Church  tells 
us,  whenever  some  great  Roman  was  converted,  or  whenever 
some  great  family  of  Rome  received  the  light,  the  very  first 
thing  they  did — the  first  impulse  of  their  new  religion — was  to 
call  an  auction  and  dispose  of  everything  that  they  had  ;  and 
then,  when  the  money  was  lying  before  them  in  great  heaps  of 
gold  and  silver,  to  call  in  the  poor  and  distribute  it  all  to  them. 
When  St.  Laurence  was  in  his  dungeon  awaiting  death,  they 
told  the  Roman  governor  that  he  was  a  deacon  of  the  Christian 
Church,  and  held  all  the  immense  riches  which  it  was  whispered 
that  they  had  hidden.  They  lied  in  that  day  about  the  priests 
of  the  Church  just  as  we  hear  their  lies  now,  when  they  say  that 
we  priests  are  always  trying  to  get  the  people's  money.  When 
the  governor  heard  this,  he  called  his  prisoner  and  said  to  him, 
"  Tell  me.  Is  it  true  that  this  Christian  Church  to  which  you 
belong  possesses  such  great  treasures?"  "Perfectly  true." 
"  Then,"  he  said,  "  I  will  give  you  your  life  on  one  condition  : 
that  you  bring  all  the  treasures  of  that  Church  and  hand  them 
to  me."  St.  Laurence  went  out  and  gathered  all  the  blind  and 
the  lame  and  the  wretched  and  the  poor  and  the  sick,  and 
brought  them  all,  hundreds  of  them,  before  the  palace-gate,  so 
that  when  the  governor  came  down,  anxious  to  gloat  over  tht 
stores  of  gold  and  silver  and  precious  stones  which  he  looked 
for,  he  saw  only  this  multitude. "    And  when  he  asked  St.  Lau« 


Christian  Charity.  559 

rencc  where  was  this  treasure,  the  deacon  answered,  "  Behold  ! 
These,  0  Prnetor,  are  the  treasures,  and  the  only  treasures  of 
the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ."  In  her  alone  we  find  charity 
organized  in  a  constant  form. 

You  have  seen  that  mercy  was  the  life  of  Christ — not  an  oc- 
casional thing  with  him,  but  the  duty  and  business  of  every  day 
of  His  life — the  only  thing  for  which  He  lived.  Where,  except 
in  the  Catholic  Church,  do  you  find  lives  consecrated — from 
youth  to  age  consecrated — to  the  one  work  of  mercy?  Outside 
of  the  Catholic  Church  you  find  a  great  deal  of  benevolence, 
kindness  of  heart,  good  nature,  a  great  deal  of  compassion  and 
gentleness  for  the  poor.  But  there  is  this  difference.  No  one, 
except  in  the  Catholic  Church,  has  this  mercy  and  charity  ap- 
pointed to  her  as  the  business  and  purpose  of  her  life,  the  sole 
object  of  her  existence,  the  sign  and  seal  of  her  union  with 
Jesus  Christ.  The  Protestant  lady  who  wishes  to  visit  the  sick 
takes  her  basket  upon  her  arm,  puts  a  bottle  of  wine  in  it,  and 
whatever  else  she  deems  necessary,  and  goes  on  her  errand.  She 
does  a  good  thing,  a  holy  thing;  yet,  remember,  she  will  do  it 
to-day — but  to-morrow  ?  To-morrow  it  may  rain,  and  the 
delicate  lady  will  stay  at  home.  She  will  do  it  to-day — she  is 
in  a  good  humor — in  the  vein  of  piety;  but,  to-morrow,  she  may 
have  a  sick  headache  and  not  feel  like  it ;  or,  perhaps,  yester- 
day, some  whom  she  visited  seemed  to  her  ungrateful  ;  or,  per- 
haps, they  were  dirty  ;  and  so  she  has  given  it  up  ;  or  she  may 
have  household  duties,  or  visits  to  pay,  and  of  course  she  can- 
not be  expected  to  give  her  whole  time  to  the  poor.  But, 
cross  the  threshold  of  the  Catholic  Church.  The  moment  you 
have  passed  it,  the  very  first  figure  you  see  is  that  of  the  Sister  of 
Charity,  or  the  Sister  of  Mercy,  or  the  Sister  of  the  Poor.  You  ask 
who  these  are,  and  he  answers  :  "  These  are  ladies — many  of  them 
ladies  of  birth — ladies  of  the  most  refined  mind — of  the  most 
cultivated  and  highly  educated  intelligence — ladies,  as  you  per- 
ceive by  their  demeanor,  by  their  walk — ladies,  who  had  all  the 
pleasures  and  joys  of  life  before  them;  but,  at  fifteen  or  six- 
teen years  of  age,  consecrated  themselves  to  the  Church.  They 
brought  to  that  Church  their  purity,  their  virtue,  their  nobility 
of  intellect,  their  refinement  of  manner,  brought  everything  to 
the  Church  and  said,  "  I  want  to  consecrate  all  these  to 
the  service  of  God."     The  Church  of  God  says,  "  Are  you  will- 


c6o  Christian  Charity. 

ing  to  devote  yo.ir  whole  life,  for  I  won't  accept  it  for  a  day,  01 
a  year?"  And  they  answered,  "Yes."  Then  the  Church 
says,  "  Go  into  a  convent,  fast  and  pray  ;  satisfy  me  of  your 
heroic  virtue ;  and,  when  I  am  satisfied  that  you  are  one  oi 
God's  elect — most  holy  ones — then,  and  then  only,  you  may  go 
into  the  hospital,  or  the  orphanage,  or  the  workhouse,  there  to 
sit  down  for  the  rest  of  your  lives,  at  the  feet  of  the  poor,"  Tc 
the  Sisters  of  Mercy  and  the  Sisters  of  Charity  she  says, 
"  Take  the  sick,  nurse  them,  perform  for  them  every  most 
menial  office,  be  their  servants,  be  their  slaves,  their  attendants, 
their  nurses,  every  day  until  the  end  of  your  life  ;  but  I  wilt  not 
give  you  the  mission  of  honor  until  you  have  first  consecrated 
yourselves  to  God."  And  in  that  consecration  the  Church 
warns  them:  "Remember,  no  matter  how  hideous  the  disease — 
no  matter  how  revolting  the  form  of  infirmity,  no  matter  how 
certain  the  contagion  and  death  you  bring  upon  yourself,  you 
must  swear  to  me,  at  the  foot  of  my  altar,  that  no  form  of 
disease,  danger,  or  contagion — no  sacrifice  of  your  own  feelings 
or  tastes — shall  ever  keep  you  for  one  instant  from  your  post  of 
labor."  This  is  charity,  as  it  is  in  the  Church.  We  can  rely 
upon  it,  we  can  lean  upon  it,  as  they  leaned  upon  the  Divine 
mercy  am'  charity  of  Jesus  Christ,  for  it  is  constant.  Consider 
the  thcs^nds  that  are  growing  into  the  maturity  of  their  age 
under  these  vows,  in  these  ministrations.  Consider  the  thou- 
sands of  consecrated  ones  in  the  Church  who  are  ripening  into 
thai  old  age  which  brings  reverence  and  the  silver  hair.  For 
all  these  there  is  no  thought  but  mercy.  All  their  hopes  for 
life  and  eternity  are  bound  up  in  the  sick  and  the  poor.  More- 
over, the  charity  which  manifests  itself  in  the  Church  is  like  to 
that  of  our  Divine  Lord  in  its  tenderness  and  gentleness.  How 
could  the  Church  be  other  than  gentle,  tender,  loving,  and  com 
passionate  in  her  mercy,  seeing  what  the  motive  is ;  she  recog- 
nizes the  Lord  in  the  poor,  and  therefore,  in  ministering  to  them, 
ministers  as  if  it  were  to  Jesus  Christ. 

My  dear  friends,  when  the  world  deals  out  its  help  tc  the 
poor,  it  deals  it  with  a  grudging  and  imperious  hand.  When 
the  political  economist,  or  the  statesman,  make  up  their  minds 
to  build  a  county-house,  or  place  of  refuge  for  the  poor,  they 
make  it  as  like  a  jail  as  possible.  The  poor  man  is  b'  ought  h» 
and  made  to  feel  that  he  is  a  pauper.     He  is  made  almost  to 


Christian  Charity.  561 

forget  his  name,  for  he  takes  his  number ;  he  is  known  only  by 
that.  He  receives  his  subsistence,  and,  under  the  poor-l.i 
tern  in  England  and  Ireland,  the  same  class  of  clothing  as  the 
convicts — the  same  pattern.  If  he  be  a  married  man,  he  is  sep- 
arated from  his  wife  ;  if  he  be  a  father,  he  is  separated  from  his 
children  ;— yes,  even  the  mother  is  separated  from  her  children, 
who  are  taken  from  her  and  put  into  the  children's  ward,  num- 
bered and  ticketed  as  a  man  would  ticket  cattle.  So,  whilst 
their  life  is  prolonged,  they  have  the  pauper's  rag  to  cover  them, 
and  the  pauper's  morsel  to  keep  life  in  them  ;  but  their  feelings 
are  crushed,  and  they  are  made  to  feel  that  they  are  dependent 
on  the  charity  of  a  world  which  longs  for  the  time  when  all  will 
be  over.  Oh  !  the  suffering,  the  feeling  of  utter  degradation 
that  must  come  over  the  man  or  woman  who  is  obliged  to  have 
recourse  to  its  assistance,  knowing  that  those  who  minister  to 
them  are  waiting  with  impatience  for  the  time  to  come  when 
the  parish  will  be  relieved  of  a  pauper,  when  a  pauper's  coffin 
shall  enshrine  him,  and  he  shall  be  borne  to  a  pauper's  grave ! 
No  hope,  no  solace,  no  tenderness,  no  sympathy ;  the  heart  is 
broken  while  the  life  is  prolonged.  Well  do  I  remember  many 
instances  of  such  a  state  of  feeling  of  our  people  with  regard  to 
this  system.  I  remember  once  being  called  to  assist  in  Dublin 
a  woman  who  was  dying.  I  climbed  up  to  the  wretched  garret, 
and  found  her  lying  upon  the  bare  floor,  with  not  even  a  little 
straw  under  her  head,  and  no  covering  save  the  rags  she  was 
accustomed  to  wear  and  walk  about  in.  The  woman  was  past 
seventy  years  of  age,  and,  in  her  youth,  had  been  well  educated, 
of  respectable  parents,  and  in  comfortable — almost  Avealthy — 
circumstances.  Her  children  had  dropped  off,  or  emigrated, 
one  by  one,  until,  at  last,  this  old  woman  was  left  alone ;  and  I 
found  her  lying  there,  with  fever  in  her  veins,  dying  of  starva- 
tion and  hunger.  She  was  not  able  to  speak  to  me  when  I  en- 
tered, and  I  had  to  lie  down  on  the  floor  to  receive  her  confes- 
sion. So  utter  was  her  destitution,  that  I  protest  I  had  to  go 
out  and  look  amongst  the  neighbors  to  get  a  cup  of  water  to 
wet  her  lips.  Seeing  her  in  such  suffering,  and  finding  myself 
unable  to  relieve  her,  I  ventured  to  suggest  to  her,  "  You  have 
no  one  to  take  care  of  you,  and  you  are  dying;  would  it  not  be 
better  to  let  me  have  you  taken  to  the  workhouse  hospital  ?" 
She  looked  at  me,  nor  will  I  ever  forget  that  look.     "  I  sent  for 

*6 


502  Christian   Charity. 

a  priest,  and,  great  God,"  she  said,  "has  he  no  consolation  to 
offer  me  but  this!  No,  father,  take  back  that  word !"  I  was 
obliged  to  take  it  back,  and  to  beg  her  pardon  for  having  used 
it.     "  No;  I  can  die  here  of  hunger,  without  being  degraded." 

Now,  pass  again  into  the  Catholic  Church.  She  selects  the 
best,  the  tenderest,  the  purest,  the  holiest  of  her  children,  and 
gives  them  the  mission  to  minister  to  the  poor.  The  gentlest 
hand  ;  the  heart  filled  with  the  tenderness  of  virgin  love  for 
Jesus  Christ ;  the  heart  that  has  never  been  contracted  by  one 
voluntary  emotion  of  self-love ;  those  who  are,  of  all  others, 
most  calculated  to  condole  whilst  relieving;  to  bind  up  the 
wounds  of  the  heart  whilst  they  raise  the  languid  head.  If  you 
or  I  to-morrow  were  stricken  down  and  afflicted,  from  what  lips 
should  we  wish  to  hear  the  words  of  consolation  and  of  hope, 
but  from  the  lips  of  the  consecrated  ones  of  Jesus  Christ?  Where 
could  we  find  a  hand  more  fitted  to  wipe  away  the  tear  upon 
our  faces  than  the  hand  locked  in  the  spiritual  nuptial  of  Jesus 
Christ  ?  If  we  wanted  to  lean  upon  the  sympathy  and  love  of 
a  fellow-creature,  where  will  we  find  a  heart  more  capable  of 
relieving  that  want  than  the  heart  that  is  empty  of  all  love,  save 
the  one  love  of  Jesus  Christ  ?  Oh !  my  dear  friends,  you  have 
only  to  go  into  any  House  of  Mercy  or  of  Charity,  or  any 
hospital,  or  to  the  Sisters  of  the  Poor,  to  find  this  true  Christian 
mercy.  Never  will  I  forget,  some  few  years  ago,  when  I  was  on 
the  mission  in  Manchester,  I  went  out  to  see  the  public  build- 
ings, and  found  amongst  them  a  house  of  the  Little  Sisters  of 
the  Poor.  They  took  in  aged  people  who  suffered  from  in- 
curable diseases ;  those  who  were  stricken  down  and  unable  to 
labor,  or  even  to  beg  for  themselves.  These — abandoned  by 
all — these,  the  Little  Sisters  of  the  Poor  lifted  out  from  their 
wretched  hovels,  and  brought  into  their  house  and  hospital ;  and 
there  they  kept  them,  surrounding  them,  so  far  as  they  could, 
with  all  the  comforts  of  home,  and  making  them  as  happy  as 
possible.  Then  they  went  out  in  the  mcrning  through  the 
crowded  streets  of  that  great  city,  and  beggeo  a  morsel  of  bread 
for  themselves  and  the  aged ;  and  they  broke  their  bread,  and 
divided  it  with  the  poor.  There  was  one  of  these  nuns — an 
English  lady — who  had  been  a  grand  lady  of  the  world — whom 
I  had  known  as  such ;  splendid  in  her  beauty  and  her  accom- 
plishments ;  grand  in  her  family ;  surrounded  with  the  worship 


Christian    Charity.  563 

of  the  society  in  which  she  moved,  and  over  which  she  reigned 
as  a  queen  ;  but  in  the  day  that  she  became  a  Catholic  she  gave 
herself  to  God,  and  became  a  Little  Sister  of  the  Poor;  and  I 
found  her  here  ministering  around  them  and  nursing  them. 
There  was  one  old  man  amongst  them,  an  Irishman,  over  eighty 
years  old  ;  his  head,  with  its  silver  hair,  bowed  down  with  age, 
and  his  mind  returning  to  the  memories  of  his  youth,  and  those 
l^e  loved,  long  since  departed.  I  spoke  to  him;  and  he  said  to 
me,  "  Ah,  friar,  when  I  was  young,  and  had  a  family  of  my  own, 
I  had  once  a  daughter — my  colleen  !  God  took  her  from  me, 
and  she  died  in  her  youth.  I  buried  her  in  the  grave.  I  was 
dying  and  starving  when  she  "  (he  pointed  to  the  young  lady), 
"  my  colleen,  came  out  of  her  grave.  She  took  me  in  her  arms, 
and  brought  me  here."*  The  Little  Sister  heard  him,  and  she 
spoke  to  me,  and  said,  "What  does  he  say?  He  is  always 
repeating  those  words."  And  I  was  obliged  to  tell  her.  "  He 
says  that  you  are  his  darling,  his  joy,  the  light  of  his  eyes,  his 
own  colleen,  come  back  from  the  grave." 

You  will  see,  accordingly,  that  it  is  the  Catholic  Church 
which  invests  its  mercy  with  the  infinite  tenderness  that  can 
only  exist  in  the  heart  consecrated  to  God.  With  the  gentle- 
ness that  is  born  of  true  nobility,  with  all  holy,  pure,  and  re- 
fining influences,  does  she  surround  her  sick. 

Again,  charity  in  the  Church  of  God,  like  charity  in  Jesus 
Christ,  is  efficacious.  It  is  a  hard-working,  ever-toiling  charity. 
It  has  gone  on  for  nearly  two  thousand  years,  and  it  has  not  out- 
grown itself  yet,  nor  is  it  tired.  Charity,  like  that  of  Him  who 
said,  "  My  Father  worketh  even  now,  and  I  work."  The  Church 
labors  with  a  charity  that  never  knows  old  age  ;  and  she  will  be 
just  the  same,  until  the  last  day,  as  she  has  been  at  any  time 
for  the  past  two  thousand  years.  The  world  complains  of  her 
importunity.  These  Sisters  come  among  you  every  day  ;  bring- 
ing home  the  sick,  and  appealing  to  you  to  give  them  the  means 
of  supporting  those  sick,  and  healing  them.  You  may  say, 
"They  are  always  troubling  us;  always  bothering;  always 
coming  to  us  in.  business  hours,  for  money."  Oh,  yes  !  it  is  so  ; 
and  so  they  will  come.  But,  consider,  if  you  please,  that  which 
is  to  you  but  the  paying  of  a  single  visit,  is  to  them  the  business 
o\  treir  lives.  Consider,  if  it  be  troublesome  for  you  to  put 
yo  ir  hand  into    your  pocket,  or  your    till,  and  give  a  dollai 


564  Christian  Charity. 

once  or  twice,  perhaps,  in  a  year,  how  much  more  trouble 
some  it  is  for  these  poor  creatures,  who  must  go  out  every  da) 
of  their  lives ;  for,  until  the  last  day  of  the  world's  existence, 
the  energy  of  the  Church — the  hand  of  the  Church,  which  they 
are — will  be  as  fervent  and  strong,  and  as  energetic  as  it  was 
in  the  days  of  the  Church,  when  the  hand  of  God  was  fresh 
upon  her ;  because  she  comes  from  God. 

Finally,  the  work  of  mercy  with  God  is  universal,  and  so  it  is 
with  the  Church.  Every  form  of  human  misery,  every  form  of 
human  suffering  finds  its  remedy  prepared  in  the  Catholic 
Church,  and  in  her  alone.  The  father  and  the  mother  die,  and 
the  poor  orphan  child  is  left  alone,  the  most  helpless  of  all  God's 
creatures.  The  orphan  sends  forth  its  wail  of  misery,  and  from 
that  voice  of  the  child  not  yet  able  to  speak,  the  Almighty  God 
hears  the  complaint ;  as  the  prophet  of  old  said :  "  Father  and 
mother  have  abandoned  me,  but  thou,  oh  Lord,  art  the  Father 
of  orphans."  There  is  no  organization  ready  to  receive  it. 
There  is  no  system  of  organized  charity  to  take  the  place  of 
father  and  mother.  The  world  makes  no  contribution  for  their 
support.  But  the  Sister  of  Charity,  or  the  Sister  of  Mercy 
comes  and  takes  that  little  infant  upon  her  virgin  bosom,  to  her 
home,  most  like  to  the  Virgin  Mother  as  she  bore  the  Infant 
from  Bethlehem.  What  will  be  the  fate  of  this  child ;  having 
no  mother  or  father,  or  a  drunken,  dissolute  father,  who  neg- 
lects him,  arid  the  poor  pre-occupied  mother,  who  cannot  care 
for  or  control  him,  he  rushes  out  into  the  streets,  and  so  amongst 
the  sights  and  sounds  of  everything  vile,  he  grows  towards  the 
time  when  his  heart  will  respond  to  the  first  call  of  passion,  and 
neither  mind  nor  heart  have  received  the  instruction  which  will 
enable  him  to  guide  or  control  his  passions.  Who  will  save 
that  young  soul  from  the  pollution  of  the  world's  example?  that 
young  heart  from  the  destruction  of  sin  ?  The  Christian  Brother 
comes  ;  the  consecrated  nun  comes.  He  is  taken  from  those 
poisonous  streets,  where  the  very  atmosphere  is  filled  with  cor- 
ruption, and  brought  into  the  house  of  God ;  there  his  young 
eye  is  taught  to  look  upon  tne  beauty  of  Jesus  and  Mary,  and 
his  tongue  becomes  accustomed  to  the  language  of  faith,  until 
educated — a  Christian  man — he  is  enabled  to  take  his  place  in 
society,  to  become  the  blessing  to  the  nation,  and  the  glory  and 
pride  of  the  Church  of  God.     The  young  girl  who  has  received 


Christian   Charity.  565 

the  fatal  dower  of  beauty ;  the  young  maiden,  the  perfect  image 
of  all  that  should  be  most  pure,  and  immaculate,  and  innocent ; 
the  young  maiden,  breathing  around  her  the  fragrance  and 
aroma  of  her  virtue,  in  the  judgment  of  God  more  sinned 
against  than  sinning ;  driven — forced  into  the  paths  of  destruc- 
tion, by  the  vile,  relentless,  accursed  action  of  some  demon  that 
meets  her,  gives  herself  up  to  sin;  and,  now,  because  she  was 
the  best  of  earth's  children,  she  becomes  the  worst ;  because 
she  was  the  purest,  she  becomes  the  most  abandoned  ;  the  in- 
voluntary glance  at  her  is  sin  ;  the  very  voluntary  thought  of 
her  flashing  across  the  mind  is  sin ;  the  air  she  breathes  she 
converts  into  sin  ;  the  touch  of  her  hand  is  pollution  ;  the  ap- 
proach to  her  is  destruction  and  the  curse  of  God.  But,  touched 
by  divine  grace,  she  turns,  as  Magdalen  turned  to  Jesus  Christ, 
and  coming  to  the  confessional  of  the  Catholic  Church,  she 
lifts  up  her  despairing  hands  and  voice,  and  cries  out,  "Can 
there  be  mercy  for  one  so  abandoned  *;  can  there  be  purity  for 
one  so  defiled  as  I  ?"  All  that  the  world  can  do  for  her  is  what 
the  Pharisees  did  when  they  gathered  up  their  robes  and  said, 
"Depart  from  me;  touch  me  not,  for  I  am  pure:"  and  well 
would  it  be  for  the  world  if  it  had  so  much  grace  as  to  say  this. 
No,  there  is  no  remedy  for  her — no  hand  can  touch  her  without 
pollution,  save  one,  and  that  is  the  hand  of  the  Church.  There 
was  only  One  in  all  the  world  to  whom  the  Magdalen  could 
come  without  defiling  him  ;  and  that  was  Jesus  Christ.  The 
Pharisees  were  right ;  they  could  do  nothing  for  her.  But  the 
moment  she  came  to  Him — the  moment  she  touched  His  im- 
maculate flesh — the  moment  her  first  tear  fell  upon  the  foot  of 
Jesus  Christ — the  moment  her  lips  touched  it,  that  moment 
Michael,  the  Archangel,  before  the  throne  of  God,  was  not 
purer  than  that  woman.  One  power  alone  can  meet  the  strick- 
en and  abandoned  one  ;  one  hand  alone  can  lift  her  weary 
head ;  one  hand  alone  can  receive  her  tears,  and  that  one  hand 
the  hand  of  Mary,  the  Virgin ;  the  only  one  that  can  touch  the 
Magdalen,  and  in  that  touch  purify.  When  the  Magdalen 
arose,  He  sent  her  to  His  Blessed  Virgin  Mother,  and  she,  the 
accepted  one  of  God,  the  embodiment  of  all  purity,  took  upon 
her  sacred  bosom  and  embraced  the  penitent.  So  it  is  in  the 
Church.  No  matter  what  the  form  of  misery,  no  matter  what 
the  form   of  wretchedness  or  sin,  it  finds  its  remedy  awaiting 


566  Christian  Charity. 

it  in   the   sanctifying    power  which   God    has    given   to    His 
Church. 

Behold  the  four  great  attributes  of  Christian  charity.  Now 
one  word  and  I  have  done.  This  charity,  that  is  constant,  that 
is  compassionate,  that  is  efficacious,  that  is  universal,  this  char- 
ity you  must  all  make  your  own  ;  and  if  you  do  not  make  it 
your  own,  I  can  give  you  no  promise  of  heaven.  I  can  hold 
out  no  hope  of  God's  everlasting  mercy,  unless  you  make  that 
mercy  and  charity  your  own.  You  cannot  make  them  your 
own  by  yourselves.  You  cannot  devote  yourselves  constantly 
to  the  poor.  Nay,  more,  you  are  not  worthy  to  enter  into  the 
ministration  directly  and  personally  of  the  Church's  mercy;  you 
are  not  holy  enough,  you  are  not  grand  enough.  There  (point- 
ing to  the  Sisters  who  were  present),  there  are  the  priestesses 
of  the  mercy  of  the  Church  of  God.  Fill  their  hands  in  pity, 
and  receive  them  at  all  times  as  Abraham  received  the  three 
angels  of  God ;  at  the  door  of  his  temple  ;  receive  them  as 
angels  of  God,  for  they  are  the  angels  of  your  soul,  who  will 
secure  the  attributes  of  mercy  for  you.  Fill  their  hands,  I 
charge  you,  that  you  may  get  credit  before  God  ;  that  you  may 
get  credit  for  the  constancy  and  the  universality  of  their  mercy. 
Then,  when  the  day  of  your  judgment  comes,  you  shall  be 
astonished,  as  the  Scripture  tells  us,  at  the  suddenness  of  your 
unexpected  salvation ;  you  shall  be  astonished  when  you  find 
that  you  have  been  clothing,  helping,  feeding,  visiting  Jesus 
Christ  all  your  life  ;  and  every  single  act  these  nuns  performed 
through  you,  and  in  your  charity,  and  in  your  mercy,  will  be 
recorded  as  a  crown  of  glory  to  rest  upon  your  brows  forever. 


THE   IRISH  PEOPLE   IN  THEIR  RE- 
LATION TO  CATHOLICITY. 


[Delivered  in  St.  Bridget's  Church,  New  York,  on  Thursday  evening,  June  6th,  1S72.] 

Y  FRIENDS:  the  subject  on  which  I  have  the 
honor  to  address  you  this  evening  is  one  of  the 
most  interesting  that  can  occupy  your  attention  or 
mine.     It  is 

CHRISTIANITY,  OR  THE  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  AS  REFLECTED 
IN  THE  NATIONAL  CHARACTER  OF  THE  IRISH  RACE  AND 
PEOPLE. 

I  say  this  subject  is  interesting,  for  nothing  that  can  offer 
itself  to  the  consideration  of  the  thoughtful  mind,  or  to  the 
philosopher,  can  possibly  be  more  interesting  than  the  study  of 
the  character  and  the  genius  of  a  people.  It  is  the  grandest 
question  of  a  human  kind  that  could  occupy  the  attention  of  a 
man.  The  whole  race  comes  under  a  mental  review;  the  history 
of  that  race  is  to  be  ascertained ;  the  antecedents  of  that 
people  have  to  be  studied  in  order  to  account  for  the  national 
character,  as  it  represents  itself  to-day  amongst  the  nations  of 
the  earth!  Every  nation,  every  people  under  heaven,  has  its 
own  peculiar  national  character.  The  nation— the  race — is  made 
up  of  thousands  and  millions  of  individual  men  and  women. 
Whatever  the  individual  is,  that  the  nation  is  found  to  be  in 
the  aggregate.  Whatever  influences  the  individual  was  sub- 
jected to  in  forming  his  character,  establishing  a  certain  tone  of 
thought,  certain  sympathies,  antipathies,  likings  or  dislikings, 
whatever,  I  say,  forms  the  individual  character  in  all  these  par 


568  The  Irish  People  in 

ticulars,  the  same  forms  the  nation  and  the  race,  because  the 
nation  is  but  an  assemblage  of  individuals. 

Now,  I  ask  you,  amongst  all  the  influences  that  can  be 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  individual  man,  to  form  his  character; 
to  make  him  either  good  or  bad  ;  to  give  tone  to  his  thoughts  ; 
to  string  his  soul  and  to  tune  it ;  to  make  him  adhere  to  God 
or  abandon  him ;  to  produce  all  this  which  is  called  character — 
is  it  not  perfectly  true  that  the  most  powerful  influence  is 
that  man's  religion  ?  It  is  not  so  much  his  education  ;  for  men 
may  be  equally  educated — one  just  as  well  as  the  other — yet 
they  may  be  different  from  each  other  as  day  from  night.  It  is 
not  so  much  his  associations — for  men  may  be  in  the  same  walk 
of  life,  men  may  be  surrounded  by  the  same  circumstances  of 
family,  of  antecedents,  of  wealth  or  poverty,  as  the  case  may 
be,  yet  may  be  as  different  as  day  and  night.  But  when  religion 
comes  in  and  fills  the  mind  with  a  certain  knowledge ;  fills  the 
soul  with  certain  principles  ;  elevates  the  man  to  a  recognition 
and  acknowledgment  of  certain  truths  ;  imposes  upon  him  cer- 
tain duties  and  the  most  sacred  of  all  obligations,  namely,  the 
obligation  of  eternal  salvation — when  this  principle  comes  in, 
it  immediately  forms  the  man's  character,  determines  what  man- 
ner of  man  he  shall  be,  gives  a  moral  tone  to  the  man's  whole 
life.  And  so  it  is  with  nations.  Amongst  the  influences  that 
form  a  nation's  character — that  give  to  a  people  the  stamp  of 
their  national  and  original  individuality — the  most  potent  of  all 
is  the  nation's  religion.  If  that  religion  be  gloomy;  if  it  be  a 
fatalistic  doctrine,  telling  every  man  he  was  created  to  be 
damned,  you  at  once  induce  upon  the  people  or  the  nation  that 
profess  it  a  miserable,  melancholy  feeling  that  makes  them  go 
through  life  like  some  of  our  New  England  Calvinists,  sniffling 
and  sighing,  and  lifting  up  their  eyes,  telling  everybody  that  if 
they  look  crooked,  looking  either  to  the  right  or  the  left,  they 
will  go  to  hell.  You  know  the  propensity  of  some  people  to  be 
always  damning  one  another.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  religion 
be  bright,  if  it  open  a  glimpse  of  heaven,  founded  upon  an 
intellectual  principle  ;  if  it  lifts  up  a  man's  hopes  ;  tells  him  in 
all  his  adversities  and  his  misfortunes  to  look  up ;  gives  him  a 
well-founded  hope  that  the  God  that  made  him  is  waiting  tc 
crown  him  with  glory,  you  will  have  a  bright,  cheerful  brave, 
and  courageous  people. 


Their  Relation  to  Catholicity.  569 

Now,  such  a  religion  is  the  Christianity  that  Christ  founded 
upon  this  earth.  I  assert,  that  if  that  religion  of  Christ  be  a 
true  religion — as  we  know  it  to  be— that  there  is  not  upon  this 
earth  a  race  whose  national  character  has  been  so  thoroughly 
moulded  and  formed  by  that  divine  religion  as  the  Irish  race,  to 
which  I  belong.  It  is  easy,  my  friends,  to  make  assertions ;  it 
is  not  so  easy  to  prove  them.  I  am  not  come  here  to-night  to 
flatter  you,  or  to  make  crude  assertions  ;  but  I  am  come  here  to 
lay  down  the  principle  which  is  just  enunciated,  and  to  prove  it. 

What  is  the  Christian  character?  What  character  does  Chris- 
tianity form  in  a  man  ?  What  does  it  make  of  a  man  ?  Men 
are  born  into  this  world  more  or  less  alike.  It  is  true  that  the 
Chinaman  has  no  bridge  to  his  nose,  and  that  his  eyes  turn  in- 
wards, as  if  both  were  occupied  watching  where  the  bridge  ought 
to  be  ;  but  that  is  an  immaterial  thing.  Intellectually,  and  even 
morally,  all  men  are  mostly  born  alike.  The  world  takes  them 
in  hand,  and  turns  out  a  certain  class  of  man  equal  to  its  own 
requirements,  and  tries  to  make  him  everything  that  it  wants 
him  to  be.  God  also  takes  him  in  hand.  God  makes  him  to  be 
not  only  what  the  world  expects  of  him,  but  also  what  God 
and  heaven  expect  of  him.  That  is  the  difference  between  the 
two  classes  of  men  ;  the  man  whose  character  is  mostly  worldly 
— who  is  not  a  Christian — and  the  man  whose  character  is  formed 
by  the  Divine  religion  of  Christ.  What  does  the  world  expect 
and  try  to  make  of  the  child  ?  Well,  it  will  try  to  make  him  an 
honest  man  ;  and  this  is  a  good  thing ;  the  world  says  it  is  "  the 
noblest  work  of  God."  Without  going  so  far  as  to  say  this,  I 
say  that  an  honest  man  is  very  nearly  the  noblest  work  of  God. 
The  man  who  is  equal  to  all  his  engagements ;  the  man  who  is 
not  a  thief  or  a  robber  (the  world  does  not  like  that) ;  the  man 
who  is  commercially  honest  and  fair  in  his  dealings  with  his 
fellow-men — that  is  a  valuable  man.  The  world  expects  him 
to  be  an  industrious  man  ;  a  man  who  minds  his  business,  and 
tries,  as  we  say  in  Ireland,  "  to  make  a  penny  of  money."  That 
is  a  very  good  thing.  I  hope  you  will  all  attend  to  it.  I  shall 
be  gladdened  and  delighted,  if  ever  I  should  come  to  America 
again — I  will  be  overjoyed — to  hear  if  any  one  comes  to  me  and 
says  in  truth — "Why,  Father  Burke,  all  these  Irishmen  you  saw 
in  New  York,  when  you  were  here  before,  have  become  wealthy, 
and  are  at  the  top  of  the  wheel."     Nothing  could  give  me  more 


570  The  Irish  People  in 

cheer.  The  world  expects  a  man  to  be  industrious  and  tern, 
perate;  because  if  a  man  is  not  industrious,  is  not  temperate,  he 
never  goes  ahead  :  he  does  no  good  for  society,  his  country,  or 
anybody.  Therefore,  this  is  also  a  good  thing.  But  when  the 
world  has  made  a  truth-telling  man,  an  honest  man,  an  indus- 
trious and  a  temperate  man,  the  world  is  satisfied.  The  world 
says :  "  I  have  done  enough ;  that  is  all  I  want."  The  man 
makes  a  fortune,  the  man  establishes  a  name,  and  the  world  at 
once — society  around  him — offer  him  the  incense  of  their  praise. 
They  say :  "  There  was  a  splendid  man.  He  left  his  mark  upon 
society."  And  they  come  together  and  put  in  a  subscription  to 
erect  a  statue  for  him  in  the  Central  Park.  But  they  have  not 
made  a  Christian.  All  those  are  human  virtues — excellent  and 
necessary.  Don't  imagine  that  I  want  to  say  a  word  against 
them.  They  are  necessary  virtues.  No  man  can  be  a  true 
Christian  unless  he  have  them.  But  the  Christian  has  a  great 
deal  more.  He  is  perfectly  distinctive  in  his  character  from  the 
honest,  truth-telling,  thrifty,  and  temperate  man  that  the  world 
makes.  The  Christian  character  is  founded  upon  all  these 
human  virtues,  for  it  supposes  them  all,  and  then,  when  it  has 
laid  the  foundation  of  all  this — the  foundation  of  nature — it 
follows  up  with  the  magnificent  super-edifice  of  grace,  and  the 
Christian  character  is  founded  in  man  by  the  three  virtues — 
faith,  hope,  and  love.  Therefore,  St.  Paul,  speaking  to  the  early 
Christians,  said  to  them :  Now,  my  friends  and  brethren,  you 
are  honest,  you  are  sober,  you  are  industrious,  you  have  all 
these  virtues,  and  I  praise  you  for  them ;  but  I  tell  you,  "  now 
there  remain  untft  you  faith,  hope,  and  charity ;  these  three." 
For  these  three  are  the  formation  of  the  Christian  character. 
Let  us  examine  what  these  three  virtues  mean.  First  of  all,  my 
friends,  these  three  virtues  are  distinguished  from  all  the  human 
virtues  in  this :  that  the  human  virtues — honesty,  sobriety,  tem- 
perance, truthfulness,  fidelity,  and  so  on — establish  a  man  in  Hs 
proper  relations  to  his  fellow-men  and  to  himself.  They  have 
nothing  to  say  to  God  directly,  but  only  indirectly.  If  I  am  an 
honest  man,  it  means  that  I  pay  my  debts.  To  whom  do  I  pay 
these  debts  ?  To  the  people  I  owe  money  to — to  my  butcher, 
my  baker,  my  tailor,  etc. ;  I  meet  their  bills  and  pay  them.  I 
owe  no  man  anything,  and  people  say  I  am  an  honest  man ; 
that  means  that  I  have  done  my  duty  to  my  fellow-men.     It  is 


Their  Relation  to  Catholicity. .  571 

no  direct  homage  to  God.  It  is  only  homage  to  God  when  that 
honesty  springs  from  the  supernatural  and  divine  motive  of 
faith.  If  I  am  a  temperate  man,  it  means,  especially  to  the 
Irishman,  that  I  am  a  loving  father,  a  good  husband,  a  good 
son.  An  Irishman  is  all  this  as  long  as  he  is  temperate  ;  but 
remember  that  the  wife,  the  child,  the  father,  and  the  mother  are 
not  God.  Temperance  makes  him  all  right  in  relation  to  him- 
self and  his  family  around  him.  If  I  am  a  truth-telling  man,  the 
meaning  is,  I  am  "on  the  square,"  as  they  say,  with  my  neigh- 
bors ;  but  my  neighbors  are  not  God.  But  the  moment  I  am 
actuated  by  faith,  hope,  and  charity,  that  moment  I  am  elevated 
towards  God.  My  faith  tells  me  there  is  a  God.  If  that  God 
has  spoken  to  me,  that  God  has  told  me  things  which  I  cannot 
understand  and  yet  I  am  bound  to  believe.  Faith  is  the  virtue 
that  realizes  Almighty  God  and  all  the  things  of  God  as  they 
are  known  by  divine  revelation. 

There  are  two  worlds — the  visible  and  the  invisible ;  the 
world  that  we  see,  and  the  world  we  do  not  see.  The  world 
that  we  see  is  our  native  country,  our  families,  our  friends,  our 
business,  our  stores,  our  ships,  our  bales  of  cotton,  our  churches, 
our  Sunday  for  amusement,  our  pleasant  evenings,  and  so  on. 
All  these  things  make  up  the  visible  world  that  we  see.  But 
there  is  another  world,  that  "  eye  hath  not  seen,  ear  hath  not 
heard,  nor  hath  it  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to  conceive," 
and  that  world  is  the  world  revealed  to  us  by  faith.  It  is  far 
more  real,  far  more  lasting,  far  more  substantial  than  the  visible 
world.  We  say  in  the  Creed,  "  I  believe  in  God,  the  Father  Al- 
mighty, Creator  of  all  things,  visible  and  invisible."  Now,  in 
that  invisible  world,  first  of  all,  is  the  God  that  created  and 
redeemed  us.  We  have  not  seen  Him,  yet  we  know  that  He 
exists.  In  that  invisible  world  are  the  angels  and  saints.  We 
have  not  seen  them,  yet  we  know  they  exist.  In  that  invisible 
world  are  all  the  friends  that  we  loved  who  have  been  taken 
from  us  by  the  hand  of  death  ;  those,  the  very  sound  of  whose 
name  brings  the  teiar  to  our  eyes  and  the  prayer  of  suffrage  to 
our  lips.  We  see  them  no  longer;  but  we  know  that  they  still 
live  in  that  invisible  world  that  "  eye  hath  not  seen ;"  and, 
therefore,  we  are  "not  unmindful  of  our  dead,  like  others  who 
have  no  hope."  Now,  the  virtue  of  faith,  in  the  Christian  char- 
acter, is  the  power  that  God  gives,  by  divine  grace   to  a  man  to 


572  .  The  Irish  People  in 

realize  that  invisible  world,  to  realize  it  so  that  He  makes  it 
more  substantial  to  him  than  the  world  around  him  ;  that  he 
realizes  more  about  it,  and  is  more  interested  in  it,  and  almost 
knows  more  about  it,  than  the  world  around  him.  The  virtue 
of  faith  is  that  power  of  God  by  which  a  man  is  enabled  to 
realize  the  invisible,  for  the  object  of  faith  is  invisible.  Our 
Lord  says  to  Thomas,  the  Apostle,  "  Because  thou  hast  seen 
thou  hast  believed  ;  blessed  are  they  that  have  not  seen  and 
have  believed." 

This  is  the  first  feature  of  the  Christian  character — the  power 
of  realizing  the  unseen,  the  power  of  knowing  it,  the  power  of 
feeling  it,  the  power  of  substantiating  it  to  the  soul  and  to  the 
mind ;  until,  out  of  that  substantiation  of  the  invisible,  comes 
the  engrossing,  ardent  desire  of  a  man  to  make  that  invisible 
surround  him  by  its  influences  in  time,  that  he  may  enjoy  its 
possession  in  eternity.  This  is  faith.  Consequently,  the  man 
of  faith,  in  addition  to  being  honest,  industrious,  temperate, 
truthful,  and  having  all  these  human  virtues,  is  a  firm  believer. 
It  costs  him  no  effort  to  believe  in  a  mystery  because  he  cannot 
comprehend  it,  because  he  has  never  seen  it.  He  knows  it  is 
true ;  he  admits  that  truth ;  he  stakes  his  own  life  upon  the 
issue  of  that  divine  truth  which  he  has  apprehended  by  the  act 
of  the  intelligence,  and  not  by  the  senses. 

The  next  great  feature  of  the  Christian  character,  is  the  vir- 
tue of  hope.  The  Christian  man  is  confident  in  his  hope.  God 
has  made  certain  promises.  God  has  said,  that  neither  in  this 
world,  nor  in  the  world  to  come,  will  he  abandon  the  just  man. 
He  may  try  him  with  poverty  ;  He  may  try  him  with  sickness  ; 
He  may  demand  whatever  sacrifice  He  will ;  but  He  never  will 
abandon  him.  Thus  saith  the  Lord.  Now,  the  virtue  of  hope 
is  that  which  enables  the  Christian  man  to  rest  with  perfect 
security,  with  unfailing,  undying  confidence,  in  every  promise 
of  God,  as  long  as  the  man  himself  fulfills  the  conditions  of 
these  promises.  The  consequence  is,  that  the  Christian  man, 
by  virtue  of  this  hope  that  is  in  him,  is  liftedfup  beyond  all  the 
miseries  and  sorrows  of  this  world,  and  he  looks  upon  them  all 
in  their  true  light.  If  poverty  comes  upon  him,  he  remembers 
the  poverty  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  he  says,  in  his  hope, "  Well,  the 
Lord  passed  through  the  ways  of  poverty  into  the  rest  of  His 
glory ,  so  shall  I  rest  as  He  did,  I  hope  for  it."     If  sickness  or 


Their  Relation  to  Catholicity.  573 

sorrow  come  upon  him,  he  looks  upon  the  trials  and  sorrov/s  of 
our  Lord,  and  unites  his  own  sorrows  to  those  of  the  Son  of 
God.  If  difficulties  rise  in  his  path,  he  never  despairs  in  him- 
self, for  he  has  the  promise  of  God  that  these  difficulties  are  only 
trials  sent  by  God,  and,  sooner  or  later,  he  will  triumph  over 
them  ;  perhaps  in  time,  but  certainly  in  eternity. 

Finally,  the  third  great  feature  of  the  Christian  character  1*3 
the  virtue  of  love.  It  is  the  active  virtue  that  is  in  a  man, 
forcing  him  to  love  his  God,  to  be  faithful  to  his  God  ;  to  love 
his  religion,  to  be  faithful  to  that  religion,  and  quick,  zealous, 
and  self-sacrificing  in  promoting  its  influence  and  its  glory  ;  to 
love  his  neighbor  as  he  loves  himself;  especially  to  love  those 
who  have  the  first  claim  upon  him ;  the  father  and  mother  that 
bore  him,  to  whom  he  is  bound  to  give  honor  as  well  as  love ; 
then  the  wife  of  his  bosom,  and  the  children  that  God  has  given 
him,  to  whom  he  is  bound  to  give  support  and  sustenance,  as 
well  as  love;  his  very  enemies — he  must  have  no  enemy — no 
personal  desire  for  revenge  at  all ;  but,  if  there  be  a. good  cause, 
he  must  defend  that  cause,  even  though  he  smite  his  enemy — 
the  enemy  not  of  him,  personally,  but  of  his  cause;  but  always 
be  ready  to  show  mercy  and  to  exhibit  love,  even  to  his  enemies. 
This  is  the  Christian  man ;  how  different  from  the  mere  man  of 
the  world  !  The  Christian  man's  faith  acknowledges  the  claims 
of  God  ;  his  hope  strains  after  God  ;  his  love  lays  hold  of  God  ; 
he  makes  God  his  own. 

Now,  my  friends,  this  being  the  Christian  character,  I  ask 
you  to  consider  the  second  part  of  my  proposition,  namely, 
that  the  Irish  people  have  received  especial  grace  from  God ; 
that  no  people  upon  the  face  of  the  earth  have  been  so  thoroughly 
formed  into  their  national  character  as  the  Irish,  by  the  divine 
principles  of  the  Holy  Catholic  religion  of  Jesus  Christ. 

How  are  we  to  know  the  national  character  ?  Well,  my 
friends,  we  have  two  great  clues  or  means  of  knowing.  First  of 
all,  we  have  the  past  history  of  our  race,  and  the  tale  that  it 
tells  us.  Secondly,  we  have  our  observation  of  the  men  of  to-day 
(wherever  the  Irishman  exists),  wherever  they  assemble  together 
and  form  society — and  the  tale  that  that  society  tells  us  to-day, 

Let  us  first  consider  briefly  the  past  of  our  nation,  of  our  race, 
and  then  we  will  consider  the  Irishman  of  to-day.  Let  us  con- 
sider the  past  of  our  history  as  a  race,  as  a  nation,  the  historj 


574  The  Irish  People  in 

of  faith,  hope,  and  love  for  God?  Is  it  pre-eminently  such  a 
history?  Is  it  such  a  history  of  Christianity,  faith,  hope,  and 
love  that  no  other  nation  on  the  face  of  the  earth  can  equal  it  ? 
If  so,  I  have  proved  my  proposition.  Now,  exactly  one  thou- 
sand and  sixty  years  before  America  was  discovered  by  Colum- 
bus, Patrick  the  Apostle  landed  in  Ireland.  The  nation  to  which 
he  came  was  a  most  ancient  race  ;  derived  from  one  of  the  pri- 
meval races  that  peopled  the  earth — from  the  great  Phcenician 
family  of  the  East.  They  landed  in  the  remote  mists  of  pre- 
historic times  upon  a  green  isle  in  the  Western  ocean.  They 
peopled  it ;  they  colonized  it,  they  established  laws,  they  opened 
schools ;  they  had  their  philosophy,  their  learning,  their  science 
and  art,  equal,  probably,  to  that  of  any  other  civilization  of  the 
day.  They  were  a  people  well-known,  in  their  Pagan  days,  to 
the  ancient  Egyptians  and  the  ancient  Greeks.  The  name  of 
the  island — the  name  by  which  we  call  it  to-day — Erin,  was  only 
a  name  that  came  after  the  more  ancient  name.  For,  by  the 
Greeks  and  the  people  of  old,  hundreds  of  years  before  the  birth 
of  Christ,  our  Ireland  was  called  by  the  name  of  Ogygia,  or  "  the 
most  ancient  land."  It  was  spoken  of  by  the  most  remote  authors 
of  antiquity  ;  the  most  ancient  Greek  writers  and  other  authors 
now  extant  spoke  of  Ireland  as  the  far-distant  ocean  island  ; 
spoke  of  it  as  a  place  of  wonderful  beauty,  as  a  place  of  ineffa- 
ble charm  ;  spoke  of  it  as  something  like  that  high  Elysium  of 
the  poet's'  dream,  an  island  rising  out  of  the  sea,  the  fairest 
and  most  beautiful  of  all  the  sea's  productions. 

We  know  that  our  ancestors  at  a  most  remote  period  received 
another  colony  from  Spain.  We  know  that  the  Milesians 
landed  in  an  island  they  called  Innisfail,  their  "  land  of  destiny." 
We  know  that  they  came  from  the  fair  Southern  sunny  land, 
bringing  with  them  high  valor,  mighty  hope,  generous  aspira- 
tions, and  an  advanced  degree  of  civilization ;  and  the  original 
inhabitants  of  Ireland  intermingled  their  race  with  the  Milesians. 
In  that  intermingling  was  formed  the  Celtic  constitution  which 
divided  Ireland  into  four  kingdoms,  all  united  under  a  high 
monarch  and  universal  king  (Ard-righ) — the  High  King  of  Ire- 
land. The  palace  of  Ireland's  king,  as  fitting,  was  built  almost 
in  the  centre  of  the  island,  two  miles  from  the  fatal  Boyne. 
The  traveller  comes  through  a  beautiful,  undulated  land  towards 
the  hill-top,   rich  in  verdure,  abundant  and  fruitful,   crowned 


Their  Relation  to  Catholicity.  575 

with  lovely  wood  en  every  side.  It  is  the  plain  of  "  royal 
Meath."  He  arrives  at  the  foot  of  the  hill— the  summit  of  that 
hill  for  centuries  was  crowned  with  the  palace  of  Ireland's 
kings.  It  was  called  in  the  language  of  the  people  "  Tara'  -- 
the  place  of  the  kings.  There,  on  Easter  Sunday  morning,  in 
the  year  432,  early  in  the  fifth  century  of  the  Christian  era,  a 
most  singular  sight  presented  itself.  Ireland's  monarch  sat 
upon  his  throne,  in  high  council  ;  around  him  were  the  sover- 
eign kings  and  chieftains  of  the  nation ;  around  him  again  m 
their  ranks  were  the  Pagan  priests — the  druids  of  the  old  fire- 
worship;  around  him  again,  on  either  sides,  on  thrones,  as  if 
they  were  monarchs,  sat  the  magnificent  ancient  minstrels  of 
Ireland,  with  snow-white  flowing  beards — their  harps  upon  their 
knees — filling  all  the  air  with  the  glofious  melody  of  Ireland's 
music,  while  they  poured  out  upon  the  wings  of  song  the  time- 
honored  story  of  Ireland's  heroes  and  her  glorious  kings.  Sud- 
denly a  shadow  fell  upon  the  threshold,  a  man  appeared — with 
mitre  on  head,  cope  on  shoulders,  andacrozier  in  his  hand,  with 
the  cross  of  Christ  upon  it.  And  this  was  Patrick,  who  came 
from  Rome,  to  preach  Christianity  to  the  Irish  kings,  chieftains, 
and  people.  They  received  him  as  became  a  civilized  and  en- 
lightened people.  They  did  not  stand,  like  other  nations,  in  a 
wild  hubbub  of  barbarism,  to  denounce  the  truth,  as  soon  as  they 
heard  it,  and  to  put  the  truth-teller  and  the  messenger  to  death  ; 
but  they  sat  down — these  kings,  these  minstrels,  these  judges 
of  the  land — these  most  learned  philosophers — they  disputed 
with  Patrick;  they  brought  the  keen  weapons  of  human 
wisdom  and  of  human  intellect  to  bear  against  that  sword  which 
he  wielded.  Oh  !  it  was  the  sword  of  the  spirit — the  word  of 
God — the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  And  when,  at  length,  that  king 
and  chieftains,  all  these  druids  and  bards,  found  that  Patrick 
preached  a  reasonable  religion  ;  that  Patrick  proved  his  religion 
and  brought  conviction  unto  their  minds ;  up  rose  at  length 
the  head  of  all  the  bards,  and  of  Ireland's  minstrels — the  man 
next  in  authority  to  the  king — the  sainted  Dubhac,  the  Arch- 
minstrel  of  the  royal  monarch  of  Tara — up  rose  this  man  in  the 
might  of  his  intellect,  in  the  glory  of  his  voice  and  his  presence, 
and  lifting  up  his  harp  in  his  hand  he  said  :  "  Hear  me,  oh 
high  king  and  chieftains  of  the  land  !  I  now  declare  that  this 
man,  who  comes  to  us,  speaks  from  God — that  he  brings  a  mes 


576  The  Irish  People  in 

sage  from  God.  I  bow  before  Patrick's  God.  He  is  the  true 
God,  and  as  long  as  I  live  this  harp  of  mine  shall  never  sound 
again  save  to  the  praises  of  Christianity  and  its  God."  And 
the  king  and  chieftains  and  bards  and  warriors  and  judges  and 
people  alike  rose  promptly ;  and  never  in  the  history  of  the 
world — never  was  there  a  people  that  so  embraced  the  light  and 
took  it  into  their  minds,  took  into  their  hearts  and  put  into  their 
blood  the  light  of  Christianity  and  its  grace,  as  Ireland  did  in 
the  day  of  her  conversion.  She  did  not  ask  her  Apostle  to  shed 
one  tear  of  sorrow.  She  rose  up,  put  her  hands  in  his,  like  a 
friend ;  took  the  message  from  his  lips,  surrounded  him  with 
honor  and  the  popular  veneration  of  all  the  people :  and  before 
he  died,  he  received  the  singular  grace — distinct  from  all  other 
saints — that  he  alone,  among  all  the  other  Apostles  that  ever 
preached  the  gospel,  found  a  people  entirely  Pagan  and  left 
them  entirely  Christian. 

And  now  began  that  wonderful  agency  of  Christian  faith, 
Christian  hope,  and  Christian  love,  which  I  claim  to  have 
formed  the  national  character  of  my  race  as  revealed  in  their 
history.  They  took  the  faith  from  Patrick ;  they  rose  at  once 
into  the  full  perfection  of  that  divine  faith.  They  became  a 
nation  of  priests,  bishops,  monks,  and  nuns,  in  the  very  day  of 
the  first  dawning  of  their  Christianity.  The  very  men  whom 
Patrick  ordained  priests,  and  whom  he  consecrated  bishops, 
were  the  men  whom  he  found  Pagans  in  the  land  to  which  he 
preached  Christianity;  the  very  women  whom  he  consecrated 
to  the  divine  service — putting  veils  upon  their  heads — the  very 
women  that  rose  at  once  under  his  hand  to  be  the  light  and 
glory  of  Ireland — as  Ireland's  womanhood  has  been  from  that 
day  to  this — were  the  maidens  and  mothers  of  the  Irish  race, 
who  first  heard  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  from  the  lips  of  St. 
Patrick. 

Well,  I  need  not  tell  you  the  thrice-told  tale  how  the  epoch 
of  our  national  history  seems  to  run  in  cycles  of  three  hundred 
years.  For  three  hundred  years  after  Patrick  preached  the  Gos- 
pel, Ireland  was  the  holiest,  most  learned,  most  enlightened, 
most  glorious  country  in  Christendom.  From  all  the  ends  of 
the  earth  students  came  to  study  in  those  Irish  schools ;  they 
came,  not  by  thousands,  but  by  tens  of  thousands.  They 
brought  back  to  every  nation  in  Europe  the  wondrous  tale  of 


Their,  Relation  to  Catholicity.  577 

Ireland's  sanctity,  of  Ireland's  glory,  of  Ireland's  peace,  of 
Ireland's  melody,  of  the  holiness  of  her  people,  and  the  devo- 
tion of  her  priesthood,  the  immaculate  purity  and  wonderful 
beauty  of  the  womanhood  of  Ireland. 

After  these  three  hundred  years  passed  away  began  the  first 
great  effort  which  proved  that  Catholic  faith  was  the  true  es- 
sence of  the  Irish  character.  The  Danes  invaded  Ireland,  and 
for  three  hundred  long  years,  every  year  saw  fresh  arrivals  ; 
fresh  armies  poured  in  upon  the  land;  and  for  three  hundred 
years  Ireland  was  challenged  to  fight  in  defence  of  her  faith, 
and  to  prove  to  the  world,  that  until  the  Irish  race  and  the  Irish 
character  were  utterly  destroyed,  that  this  Catholic  faith  never 
would  cease  to  exist  in  the  land.  The  nation — for,  thank  God, 
in  that  day  we  were  a  nation ! — the  nation  drew  the  nation's 
sword.  Brightly  it  flashed  from  that  scabbard  where  it  had 
rested  for  three  hundred  years  in  Christian  peace  and  holiness. 
Brightly  did  it  flash  from  that  scabbard  in  the  day  that  the 
Dane  landed  in  Ireland,  and  the  Celt  crossed  swords  with  him 
for  country,  for  fatherland,  and,  much  more,  for  the  altar,  for 
religion,  and  for  God.  The  fight  went  on.  Every  valley  in  the 
land  tells  its  tale.  There  are  many  amongst  us  who,  like  myself, 
have  been  born  and  educated  in  the  old  country.  What  is  more 
common,  my  friends,  than  to  see  what  is  called  the  old  "  rath," 
or  mound,  sometimes  in  the  middle  of  the  field,  sometimes  on 
the  borders  of  a  bog,  sometimes  on  the  hill-side,  to  see  a  great 
mound  raised  up.  The  people  will  tell  you  that  is  a  "  rath,"  and 
Ireland  is  full  of  them.  Do  you  know  what  that  means  ?  When 
the  day  of  the  battle  was  over,  when  the  Danes  were  conquered, 
and  their  bodies  were  strewn  in  thousands  on  the  field,  the  Irish 
gathered  them  together,  and  made  a  big  hole  into  which  they 
put  them,  and  heaped  them  up  into  a  great  mound,  covered 
them  with  earth,  and  dug  scraws  or  sods  and  covered  them.  In 
every  quarter  of  the  land  are  they  found.  What  do  they  tell  "* 
They  tell  this,  that  until  the  day  of  judgment,  until  when  all  the 
sons  of  men  shall  be  in  the  Valley  of  Jchosophat,  no  man  will  be 
able  to  tell  of  the  thousands  and  the  tens  of  thousands  and  the 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  Danish  invaders  that  came  to  Ireland 
only  to  find  a  place  for  a  grave  !  Ah,  gracious  God  !  that  we  could 
say  the  same  of  every  invader  that  ever  polluted  the  virgin  soil 
of  Erin  !     Well  did  Brian  Boroimhe  know  how  many  inches  of 

37 


578  The  Irish  People  in 

Irish  land  it  took  to  make  a  grave  for  the  Dane.     Well  did  the 
heroic  king  of  Meath — perhaps  a  greater  character  than  even 
Brian  himself,  Malachi  the  Second,  of  whom  the  poet  says — he 
"wore  the  collar  of  gold  which  he  won  from  the  proud  invader" 
— a  man   who  with  his  own  hand  slew  three  of  the  kings  and 
leaders  and  warriors  of  the  Danish  army — well  did  he  know 
how  many  feet  of  Irish  soil  it  took  to  bury  a  Dane.    For,  in  the 
Valley  of  Glenamana,  in  Wicklow,  on  a  June  morning,  he  found 
them,  and  he  poured  down  from  the  hill-tops  with  his  Gaelic 
and    Celtic    army   upon    them.      Before  the  sun   set  over   the 
Western   ocean  to  America  (then  undiscovered)  there  were  six 
thousand  Danes  stretched  dead  in  the  valley.     Well,  my  friends, 
three  hundred  years  of  war  passed  away.     Do  you  know  what 
it  means?  Can  you  realize  it  to  yourselves?  There  is  no  nation 
upon  the  face  of  the  earth  that  has  not  been  ruined  by  war ; 
you    had    only  four   years  of  war  here  in   America  and  you 
know  how  much  evil  it  did.     Just  fancy  three  hundred  years  of 
.war  !     War  in  every  county,  every  province,  every  valley  of  the 
land,  war  everywhere  for  three  hundred  years  !     The  Irishman 
had  to  sleep  with  a  drawn  sword  under  his  pillow,  the  hilt  ready 
to  his  hand,  and  ready  to  spring  up  at  a  moment's  warning,  for 
the  honor  of  his  wife,  for  the  honor  of  his  daughter,  and  the 
peace  of  his  household,  and  the  sacred  altar  of  Christ.     And, 
yet,  at  the  end  of  three  hundred  years,  two  things  survived. 
Ireland's  Catholic  faith  was  as  fresh  as  it  ever  was  ;  and   Ire- 
land's music  and  minstrelsy  was  as  luxuriant  and  flourishing  in 
the  land  as  if  the  whole  time  had  been  a  time  of  peace.     How 
grand  a  type  is  he  of  the  faith  and  genius  of  our  people,  how 
magnificent  a  type  of  the  Irish  character,  a  man  of  eighty-three 
years  of  age,  mounted  on  his  noble  horse,  clad  in  his  grand  armor, 
with  a  battle-axe   in  one  uplifted  hand,  and  the  crucifix  in  the 
other — the  heroic  figure  of  Brian  Boroimhe,  as  he  comes  out  on 
the  pages  of  Irish  history  and  stands  before  us,  animating  his 
Irish  army  at  Clontarf,  telling  who  it  was  that  died  for  them, 
and  who  it  was  they  were  to  fight  for.     Before  the  evening  sun 
set,  Ireland — like  the  man  who  shakes  a  reptile  off  his  hand — 
shook  from  her  Christian  bosom  that  Danish  army  into  the  sea, 
and  destroyed  them.     Yet  O'Brien,  the  immortal  monarch  and 
King  of  Ireland,  was  as  skilled  with  the  harp  as  he  was  with  the 
battle-axe  ;  and  as  in  the  rush  and  heat  of  the  battle,  no  man 


Their  Relation  to  Catholicity.  579 

stood  before  him  and  lived — that  terrible  mace  came  down  upon 
him,  and  sent  him  either  to  heaven  or  hell — so  in  the  halls  of 
Kincora,  upon  the  banks  of  the  Shannon,  when  all  the  minstrels 
of  Ireland  gathered  together  to  discuss  the  ancient  melod 
the  lai  d,  there  was  no  hand  amongst  them  that  could  bring  out 
the  thrill  of  the  gold  or  silver  cords  with  such  skill  as  the  aged 
hand  of  the  man  who  was  so  terrible  on  the  battlefield-— a  Chris- 
tian warrior  and  minstrel — the  very  type  of  the  Irish  character 
was  that  man  that,  after  three  hundred  years  of  incessant  war, 
led  the  Irish  forces  upon  the  field  of  Clontarf,  from  which  they 
swept  the  Danes  into  the  sea. 

Then  came  another  three  hundred  years  of  invasion,  and  Ire- 
land again  fights  for  her  nationality — until  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, just  three  hundred  years  ago — and  then  she  was  told  that 
after  fighting  for  nearly  four  hundred  years  for  her  nationality, 
she  must  begin  and  fight  again,  not  only  for  that,  but  for  her 
altar  and  her  ancient  faith.  The  Danes  came  back,  they  came 
to  Ireland  with  the  cry,  "  Down  with  the  cross— down  with  the 
altar!  "  Harry  the  Eighth  came  to  Ireland,  with  the  same  cry  ; 
but  the  cross  and  the  altar  are  up  to-day  in  Ireland,  and  Harry 
the  Eighth,  I  am  greatly  afraid,  is — down. 

Three  hundred  long  years  of  incessant  war,  with  four  hundred 
years  before  of  incessant  war,  making  the  Irish  people  one 
thousand  years  engaged  in  actual  warfare  —  seven  hundred 
years  with  the  Saxon  and  three  hundred  years  before  that  with 
the  Dane.  Where  is  the  nation  upon  the  face  of  the  earth  that 
has  fought  for  one  thousand  years  ?  Why,  one  would  imagine 
that  they  should  all  be  swept  away!  How,  in  the  world,  did  they 
stand  it  ?  We  have  been  fighting  a  thousand  years  ? — the  battle 
begun  by  our  forefathers  has  been  continued  down — well,  down 
to  the  year  before  last.  The  sword  of  Ireland,  that  was  drawn 
a  thousand  years  ago,  at  the  beginning  of  the  ninth  century, 
still  remains  out  of  the  scabbard,  and  has  not  been  sheathed  down 
to  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Did  ever  anybody  heat 
the  like?  And  yet,  here  we  are,  glory  be  to  God!  Here  we 
are  as  fresh  and  hearty  as  Brian  Boroimhe  on  the  morning  ot 
Clontarf  or  as  Hugh  O'Neil  was  at  the  Yellow  Ford,  or  as 
Owen  Roe  O'Neill  was  at  the  field  of  Benburb,  or  as  Patrick 
Sc-rsfield  was  in  the  trenches  of  Limerick,  or  as  Robert  Emmett 
in  the  dock  at  Green  street. 


The  Irish  People  in 

Now,  my  friends,  let  me  ask  you — what  did  the  Irish  people 
fight  for,  for  six  hundred  years  ?  For  three  hundred  years  they 
fought  with  the  Dane  ;  for  three  hundred  years  they  fought 
with  England.  The  Danes  invaded  and  desolated  the  whole 
knd  ;  the  English,  three  times  since  Harry  the  Eighth — taking  it 
down  to  the  present — landed  in  Ireland  and  spread  destruction 
and  desolation  upon  it.  This  Irish  people  fought  for  six  hun- 
dred years  ;  what  did  they  fight  for?  They  fought  for  six  hun 
dred  years  for  something  they  had  never  seen  :  they  never  saw 
Christ,  in  the  blessed  Eucharist,  because  He  was  hidden  from 
them  under  the  sacramental  veils  of  bread  and  wine  ;  they  never 
saw  the  mother  of  the  God  of  heaven  ;  they  never  saw  the 
saints  and  angels  of  heaven  ;  they  never  saw  the  Saviour  upon 
the  cross  :  and  yet,  for  that  Christ  on  the  cross,  for  the  Saviour, 
in  the  tabernacle,  and  for  the  Mother  of  Purity  in  heaven,  and  the 
angels  and  saints,  they  fought  these  six  hundred  years.  Thej 
shed  their  blood  until  every  acre  of  land  in  Ireland  was  red  with 
the  blood  of  the. Irishman,  that  was  shed  for  his  religion  and  for 
his  God.  What  does  this  prove?  Does  it  not  prove  that  beyond 
all  other  races  and  nations,  the  Irish  character  was  able  to 
realize  the  Unseen  and  so  to  substantiate  the  things  of  faith  as  to 
make  them  of  far  greater  importance  than  liberty,  than  property, 
than  land,  than  education,  than  life  ?  For  any  man  who  goes 
out  and  says,  "  I  am  ready  to  give  up  every  inch  of  land  I  pos- 
sess ;  I  am  ready  to  go  into  exile  ;  I  am  ready  to  be  sold  as  a 
slave  in  Barbadoes ;  I  am  ready  to  be  trampled  under  foot  or  ta 
die  for  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  present  here,  though  I  never  saw 
Him  ;" — that  man  is  pre-eminently  a  man  of  faith.  The  Irish 
nation  for  six  hundred  years  answered  the  Saxon  and  the  Dane 
thus:  We  will  fight  until  we  die  for  our  God  who  is  upon  our 
altars.  Now,  I  ask  you  to  find  amongst  the  nations  of  the 
earth  any  one  nation  that  was  ever  asked  to  suffer  confiscation 
and  robbery  and  exile  and  death  for  their  faith,  and  who  did 
it,  like  one  man,  for  six  hundred  years?  When  you  have 
found  that  nation,  when  you  are  able  to  say  to  me — such  a 
people  did  that,  and  such  another  people  did  that,  and  to 
prove  it  to  me,  I  will  give  up  what  I  have  said — namely,  that 
the  Irish  are  the  most  Christian  in  character  and  in  their  faith 
of  any  people  in  the  world.  As  soon  as  you  are  able  to  prove 
to  me  that  any  other  people  ever  stood  so  much  for  their  faitU 


Their  Relation  to  Catholicity.  581 

I  stan  i  corrected  ;  but  until  you  prove  it,  I  hold  that  the  Irish 
people  and  race  are  the  most  Catholic  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 

Now,  my  friends,  if  I  want  any  proof  of  the  Irish  faculty  of 
realizing  the  unseen,  why,  my  goodness,  we  are  always  at  it. 
The  Irish  child,  as  soon  as  he  arrives  at  the  age  of  reason,  has 
an  innate  faculty  of  realizing  the  unseen.  When  he  comes  out 
of  the  back-door  and  looks  into  the  field,  he  imagines  he  sees  a 
fairy  in  every  bush.  If  he  sees  a  butterfly  upon  a  stalk  in  the 
field,  he  thinks  it  is  a  Lcprcchaxcn.  I  remember,  when  a  boy 
growing  up,  studying  Latin,  having  made  up  my  mind  to  be  a 
priest — I  was  a  grown  lad  ;  and  yet  there  was  a  certain  old 
archway  in  Bowling  Green,  in  Galway,  to  which  there  was 
attached  a  tradition  ;  I  know  there  are  some  here  that  will 
lemember  it.  It  was  near  the  place  where  Lynch,  the  Mayor, 
hanged  his  son,  hundreds  of  years  ago ;  near  the  Protestant 
churchyard  also,  and  that  gave  it  a  bad  name.  At  any  rate, 
grown  as  I  was,  learning  Latin,  knowing  everything  about  the 
catechism,  and  having  made  up  my  mind  to  be  a  priest — I  was 
never  able  to  pass  under  that  arch  after  nightfall  without  run- 
ning for  dear  life.  This  superstition,  if  you  will — this  Irish 
superstition — is  at  least  a  proof  of  the  faculty  of  realizing  the 
unseen.  Remember  that,  wherever  superstition — especially  of 
a  spiritual  character — exists,  there  is  proof  that  there  is  a 
character  formed  to  realize  the  unseen. 

Now,  my  friends,  consider  the  next  great  impress  of  the  Chris- 
tian character  stamped  upon  the  Irish  people.  The  Apostle 
says  "  we  are  saved  by  hope."  The  principle  of  hope  imposes 
confidence  in  the  divine  promises  of  God,  in  the  certainty  of 
their  fulfillment;  a  confidence  never  shaken,  that  never  loses 
itself,  that  never  loosens  its  hold  upon  God,  that  never,  for  an 
instant,  yields  to  depression  or  despair.  I  ask  you  if  that  virtue 
is  found  stamped  upon  our  Irish  character  ?  Tell  me,  first  of  all, 
as  I  wish  to  prove  it,  during  this  thousand  years'  fighting  for 
Ireland,  was  there  ever  a  day  in  the  history  of  our  nation  when 
Ireland  lost  courage  and  struck  her  flag?  That  flag  was  never 
pulled  down  ;  it  has  been  defeated  on  many  a  field ;  it  has  been 
dragged  in  the  dust,  in  the  dust  stained  with  the  blood  of  Ire- 
land's best  and  most  faithful  sons;  it  has  been  washed  in  the 
accursed  waters  of  the  Boyne ;  but  never  has  the  nation,  fur  ,* 
single  hour,  hesitated  to  lift  that  prostrate  banner,  and  fling  it 


582  Hie  Irish  People  tn 

out  to  the  bteeze  of  heaven,  and  proclaim  that  Ireland  was  still 
full  of  hope.  Scotland  had  as  glorious  a  banner  as  ours.  The 
Scotch  banner  was  hauled  down  upon  the  plains  of  Culloden, 
and  the  Scots,  chivalrous  as  their  fathers  were,  never  raised  that 
flag  to  the  mast-head  again  ;  it  has  disappeared.  It  is  no  longer 
"  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland,"  as  it  used  to  be ;  it  is 
"  Great  Britain  and  Ireland."  Why  is  it  "  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland  ?"  Why  is  it  not  simply  "  Great  Britain  ?"  Why  is  the 
sovereign  called  the  "  Queen  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  ?" 
Because  Ireland  refused  to  give  up  her  hope ;  and  never  ac- 
knowledged that  she  was  ever  anything  else  except  a  nation. 
Well,  my  friends,  it  was  that  principle  of  hope  that  sustained 
our  fathers  during  those  thousand  years  they  kept  their  faith. 
And  the  word  of  Scripture  as  recorded  in  the  book  of  Tobias  is 
this  :  when  the  Jews  were  banished  into  Babylonish  captivity — 
men  said  to  Tobias — to  the  man  who  "  was  mindful  of  the 
Lord  with  all  his  heart,  and  when  all  ate  of  the  meats  of  the 
Gentiles,  he  kept  his  soul,  and  never  was  defiled  with  their 
meats  ;"  men,  I  say,  said  to  him,  "  Where  is  thy  hope  ?"  Tobias 
answered,  "  Speak  not  so  ;  for  we  are  the  children  of  saints,  and 
look  for  that  life  which  God  will  give  to  those  that  never  change 
their  faith  from  him."  This  is  the  inspired  language  of  Scrip 
ture;  and  well  the  Irish  knew  it;  and  therefore,  as  long  as  Irs;  h- 
men  kept  their  faith  to  their  God  and  their  altar,  so  they  wisely 
and  very  constantly  refused  to  lay  down  their  hope.  The  Chris- 
tian character  is  made  up  of  hope  as  well  as  of  faith  and  of  love 
If  Ireland  laid  down  her  hope  in  despair,  that  high  note  of 
Christian  character  would  never  be  in  her.  The  Irish  people 
never  knew  they  were  beaten.  Year  after  year — one  day  out 
and  another  day  in — whilst  the  nations  around  were  amazed  at 
the  tenacity  of  that  people  with  two  ideas — namely,  that  they 
were  Catholic,  and  a  Nation — Ireland  never  lost  sight  of  her 
hope.  What  followed  from  this  ?  What  was  the  consequence 
of  this  ?  Enshrined  in  the  national  heart  and  in  the  national 
aims,  there  has  been — wherever  the  Irishman  exists — there  has 
been  the  glory  upon  his  head  of  the  man  whose  courage,  in  the 
hour  of  danger,  could  be  relied  upon.  Every  nation  in  Europe 
has  had  a  taste  of  what  Ireland's  courage  is.  They  fought  in 
the  armies  of  Germany — in  those  Austrian  armies,  where  ten 
thousand  Irishmen,  for  thirty  years,  were  every  day  encamped 


Their  Relation  to  Catholicity,  583 

in  the  field.  They  fought  in  the  armies  of  Spain  ;  ten  thousand 
Irishmen  encamped  in  the  field.  They  fought  in  the  armies — 
once  so  glorious — of  France,  thirty  thousand  Irishmen  with 
Patrick  Sarsfield  at  their  head.  Did  they  ever  turn  their  backs 
and  run  away?  Never.  At  the  battle  of  Ramillics,  when  the 
French  were  beaten,  and  they  were  flying  before  the  English, 
the  English,  in  the  heat  of  their  pursuit,  met  a  division  of  the 
French  army.  Ah !  that  division  was  the  Irish  Brigade.  They 
stopped  them  in  the  full  tide  of  their  victory,  and  they  drove 
them  back  and  took  the  colors  out  of  their  hands,  and  marched 
off  after  the  French  army.  If  any  of  you  go  to  Europe,  it  will 
be  worth  your  while  to  go  to  an  old  Flemish  town  called  Ypres. 
In  the  cathedral  you  will  see  old  time-worn  flags  and  banners. 
If  you  will  ask  the  sexton  to  explain  these  flags  to  you,  he  will 
come  to  one  of  these  flags  and  say :  "  That  was  the  banner  that 
the  Irish  took  from  the  English  in  the  very  hour  of  their  victory 
at  Ramillies."  King  Louis  was  going  to  turn  and  fly  at  the 
battle  of  Fontenoy ;  but  Marshal  Saxe  told  him  to  wait  for  five 
minutes  until  he  should  see  more.  "  Your  majesty,  don't  be  in 
such  a  hurry;  wait  a  minute;  it  will  be  time  enough  to  run 
away  when  the  Irish -run."  Calling  out  to  Lord  Clare,  he  said, 
"  There  are  your  men  and  there  are  the  Saxons."  The  next 
moment  there  was  a  hurra  heard  over  the  field.  In  the  Irish 
language  they  cried  out — "  Remember  Limerick  and  down  with 
the  Sassenach!"  That  column  of  Englishmen  melted  before 
the  charge  of  the  Irish,  just  as  the  snow  melts  in  the  ditch  when 
the  sun  shines  strongly  upon  it.  When  a  man  loses  hope  he 
loses  courage  ;  he  gives  it  up.  "  It  is  a  bad  job,"  he  says  ; 
"  there  is  no  use  going  on  any  farther."  But  as  long  as  he  can 
keep  his  courage  up,  with  the  lion  in  his  heart,  so  long  you  may- 
be sure  there  is  some  grand  principle  of  hope  in  him.  Ours  is  a 
race  that  has  almost  "  hoped  against  hope."  I  say  that  comes 
trom  our  Catholic  religion— the  Catholic  religion  that  tells  us : 
u  You  are  down  to-day— don't  be  afraid  ;  hold  on ;  lean  upon 
your  God.     You  will  be  up  to-morrow." 

The  third  grand  feature  of  the  Christian  is  love ;  a  love  both 
strong  and  tender  ;  a  love  that  first  finds  its  vent  in  God.  with 
all  of  the  energies  of  the  spirit  and  the  heart  and  soul  going 
straight  for  God  ;  crushing  aside  whatever  is  in  its  path  of  the 
temptations  of  men  ;  and  in  faith  and  hope  and   love,  making 


5  $4  The  Irish  People  in 

straight  for  God.  Trampling  upon  his  passions,  the  man  of  love 
goes  straight  towards  God  :  and.,  in  that  journey  to  God,  he 
will  allow  nothing  to  hinder  him.  No  matter  what  sacrifice  that 
God  calls  upon  him  to  make,  he  is  ready  to  make  it  ;  for  the 
principle  of  sacrifice  is  divine  love.  Most  assuredly,  never  did 
her  God  call  upon  Erin  for  a  sacrifice  that  Erin  did  not  make  it. 
God  sent  to  Ireland  the  messenger  of  His  wrath,  the  wretched 
Elizabeth.  She  called  upon  Ireland  for  Ireland's  liberty  and 
Ireland's  land ;  and  the  people  gave  up  both  rather  than  forsake 
their  God.  God  sent  Ireland  another  curse  in  Oliver  Cromwell— 
a  man  upon  whom  I  would  not  lay  an  additional  curse,  for  any 
consideration  ;  because  for  a  man  to  lay  an  additional  curse 
upon  Oliver  Cromwell  would  be  like  throwing  an  additional 
drop  of  water  on  a  drowned  rat.  Cromwell  called  upon  the 
Irish  people,  and  said,  "  Become  Protestant  and  you  will  have 
your  land  ;  you  will  have  your  possessions,  your  wealth 
Remain  Catholic,  and  take  your  choice — '  Hell,  or  Connaught.' ' 
Ireland  made  the  sacrifice;  and,  on  the  25th  day  of  May,  165 1, 
every  Catholic  supposed  to  be  in  Ireland  crossed  the  Shannon, 
and  went  into  the  wild  wastes  of  Connaught  rather  than  give  up 
their  faith.  William  of  Orange  came  to  Ireland  ;  and  he  called 
upon  the  Irish  to  renounce  their  faith  or  submit  to  a  new  perse- 
cution— new  penal  laws.  Ireland  said  :  "  I  will  fight  against 
injustice  as. long  as  I  can;  but  when  the  arm  of  the  nation  is 
paralyzed,  and  I  can  no,  longer  wield  the  sword,  one  thing  I  will 
hold  in  spite  of  death  and  hell,  and  that  is  my  most  glorious 
Catholic  faith."  If  they  did  not  love  their  God  would  they 
have  done  this  ?  Would  they  have  suffered  this  ?  If  they  did 
not  prize  that  faith,  would  they  have  preferred  it  to  their  liberty, 
their  wealth,  and  their  very  lives  ?  No,  no  !  Patrick  sent  the 
love  of  God  and  the  Virgin  Mother  deep  into  the  hearts  of  the 
Irish ;  and  in  our  Irish  spirit,  and  in  the  blood  of  the  nation,  it 
has  remained  to  this  day.  Wherever  an  Irishman,  true  to  his' 
country,  true  to  his  religion,  exists,  there  do  you  find  a  lover  of 
Jesus  Christ  and  of  Mary. 

More  than  this,  their  love  for  their  neighbor  shows  this  in 
three  magnificent  ways — the  fidelity  of  the  Irish  husband  to  the 
Irish  wife,  and  the  Irish  son  to  the  Irish  father  and  mother,  and 
of  the  Irish  father  to  his  children.  Where  is  there  a  nation  in 
whom  those  traits  are  more  magnificently  brought  out  ?     Eng. 


Tiuir  Relation  to  Catholicity.  585 

land  told  Ireland,  a  few  years  ago,  that  the  Irish  husbands 
might  divorce  their  Irish  wives.  Nothing  was  heard  from  one 
end  of  the  land  to  the  other  but  a  loud  shout  of  a  laugh.  "  Oh, 
listen  to  that !  So  a  man  can  separate  from  his  wife  !  The 
curse  of  Cromwell  on  ye  !  "  England  told  the  fathers  of  Ire- 
land that  it  was  a  felony  to  send  their  children  to  school.  And 
yet  never  did  the  Irish  fathers  neglect  that  sacred  duty  of  edu- 
cation. When  it  was  found  that  a  man  was  sending  his  chil- 
dren to  school,  he  was  liable  to  a  fine  and  imprisonment.  In 
spite  of  the  imprisonment  and  the  fine,  the  Irish  people,  who 
never  have  been  serfs,  refused  to  be  the  slaves  of  ignorance  ; 
and  Ireland  was  always  an  educated  nation.  In  the  worst  day 
of  our  persecution — in  the  worst  day  of  our  misery — there  was 
one  man  that  was  always  respected  in  the  land  next  to  the 
priest ;  and  that  was  the  "  poor  scholar,"  with  a  few  books 
under  his  arm,  going  from  one  farm-house  to  the  other,  with  a 
"  God  save  all  here  !  "  He  got  the  best  of  the  house,  the  best 
bed,  the  cosiest  place  in  the  straw-chair.  And  the  children  were 
all  called  in  from  the  neighboring  houses  and  from  the  village. 
He  could  spend  a  week  from  one  house  to  another.  Every 
house  in  Ireland  was  turned  into  a  school-house  at  one  time  or 
another.  Hence,  I  have  known  men,  old  men  of  my  own 
family,  who  remembered  1782.  I  have  seen  them,  when  a  child, 
in  their  old  age,  and  these  men,  brought  up  in  those  days  of 
penal  persecution  and  misery,  with  its  enforced  ignorance,  were 
first-class  controversialists.  They  knew  how  to  read  and  write  ; 
they  knew  Dr.  Gallagher's  sermons  by  heart.  There  was  no 
Protestant  bishop  or  Protestant  minister  in  Ireland  that  could 
hold  his  ground  five  minutes  before  them. 

The  nation's  love,  the  people's  love,  for  that  which  was  next 
to  their  God — the  very  next — is  the  love  of  a  man  for  his 
country  Is  there  any  land  so  loved  as  Ireland,  by  its  people? 
Sarsfield,  dying  upon  the  plains  of  Landen,  is  only  a  fair  type  of 
the  ordinary  Irishman.  There  was  many  as  good  a  man,  as 
heroic  a  man,  in  the  ranks  of  the  Irish  Brigade,  that  fell  that 
day,  as  Sarsfield,  who,  in  full  career  of  victor}',  at  the  head  of 
Lord  Clare's  dragoons,  following  the  British  army,  as  they  fled 
from  him  ;  William  of  Orange  in  their  ranks,  flying  and  showing 
the  broad  of  his  back  to  Sarsfield,  as,  sword  in  hand,  gleaming 
like  the  sword  of  God's  justice,  the  Irish  hero  was  in  full  chase, 


586  The  Irish  People  in 

when  a  musket-ball  struck  him  to  the  heart,  and  he  fell  dying 
from  his  horse.  The  blood  was  welling  out  hot  from  his  very 
heart ;  he  took  the  full  of  his  hand  of  his  heart's  blood,  and, 
raising  his  eyes  to  heaven,  he  cried :  "  Oh,  that  this  was  shed 
for  Ireland  !  "  A  true  Irishman  !  Where  was  the  nation  that 
was  ever  so  loved  ?  In  the  three  hundred  years  of  persecution, 
take  the  "  Bhreathair,"  the  old  Irish  Friar,  the  Dominicans,  and 
Franciscans,  who  were  of  the  first  families  of  the  land — the 
O'Neills,  the  Maguires,  the  McDonnells,  the  McDermotts  ;  down 
in  Galway,  the  Frenches,  the  Lynches,  the  Blakes,  and  the 
Burkes.  These  fair  youths  used  to  be  actually  smuggled  out  by 
night,  and  sent  off  the  coast  of  Ireland  to  Rome,  to  France,  and 
to  Spain,  to  study  there.  Enjoying  all  the  delicious  climates  of 
those  lovely  countries,  surrounded  by  honor,  leading  easy  lives, 
filling  the  time  with  the  study  and  intellectual  pleasures  of  the 
priesthood,  still  every  man  felt  uneasy.  To  use  the  old,  familiar 
phrase,  "  They  were  like  a  hen  on  a  hot  griddle,"  as  long  as  they 
were  away  from  Ireland,  although  they  knew  that  in  Ireland 
they  were  liable  to  be  thrown  into  prison,  or  be  subjected  to 
death  :  during  ages  of  persecution,  if  one  fell  in  the  ranks, 
another  stepped  into  his  place.  Of  six  hundred  Dominicans  in 
Ireland,  at  the  time  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  there  were  only  four 
remained  after  she  passed  her  mild  hand  over  them.  Where 
did  they  come  from?  From  out  of  the  love  of  Ireland,  and  the 
heart  and  the  blood  of  her  best  sons.  They  would  not  be  satis- 
fied with  honors  and  dignities  in  other  lands.  No.  Their  hearts 
were  hungry  until  they  caught  sight  of  the  green  soil,  and  stood 
amongst  the  shamrocks  once  more. 

And,  now,  I  say  to  you — and  all  the  history  of  our  nation 
proves  it — I  say,  that  the  Irish  race  to-day  is  not  one  bit  unlike 
the  race  of  two  or  three  hundred  years  ago.  We  are  the  same 
people  ;  and  why  should  we  not  be  ?  We  have  their  blood  ;  we 
have  their  names  ;  their  faith,  their  traditions,  their  love.  I  ask 
you,  is  not  the  Irishman  of  to-day  a  man  of  faith,  hope,  and 
love?  Who  built  this  beautiful  church?  Who  erected  this 
magnificent  altar?  Who  made  the  place  for  Father  Mooney's 
voice  to  resound,  pleasantly  tinged  with  the  old  Irish  roll  and 
brogue  ?  He  has  a  little  touch  of  it,  and  he  is  not  ashamed  of 
it.  I  remember  once  when  a  lady  in  England  said  to  me,  "  The 
rr  oment  you  spoke  to  me,  Father,  I  at  once  perceived  you  were 


Their  Relation  to  Catholicity.  587 

an  Irishman  ;  you  have  got  what  they  call  the  brogue."  "  Yes, 
madame,"  said  I,  "  my  father  had  it,  and  my  mother  had  it ; 
but  my  grandfather  and  grandmother  did  not  have  it,  because 
they  did  not  speak  English  at  all.  Yes,"  I  said,  "  I  have  the 
brogue  ;  and  I  am  full  of  hope  that  when  my  soul  comes  to 
heaven's  gate,  and  I  ask  St.  Peter  to  admit  me,  when  he  hears 
the  touch  of  the  brogue  on  my  tongue  he  will  let  me  in  the 
more  willingly."  But,  I  asked,  who  built  this  church  ?  who  has 
covered  America  with  our  glorious  Catholic  churches?  All 
credit  and  honor  to  every  Catholic  race.  All  honor  and  credit 
to  the  Catholic  Frenchman,  and  to  the  Catholic  German.  The 
Germans  of  this  country — those  brave  men  ;  those  sons  of 
Catholics  ;  those  descendants  of  the  great  Roman  emperors  that 
upheld  for  so  many  centuries  the  sceptre  in  defence  of  the  altar, 
are  worthy  of  their  sires.  They  have  done  great  things  in  this 
country;  but,  my  friends,  it  is  Ireland,  after  all,  that  has  done 
the  lion's  share  of  the  work.  What  brought  the  Irishman  to 
America,  so  bright,  so  cheerful,  so  full  of  hope?  The  undying 
hope  that  was  in  him  ;  the  confidence  that,  wherever  he  went, 
as  long  as  he  was  a  true  Catholic,  and  faithful  to  the  traditions 
of  the  Church  to  which  he  belongs,  and  to  the  nation  from  which 
he  sprang,  that  the  hand  of  God  would  help  him,  and  bring  him 
up  to  the  surface,  sooner  or  later.  And  the  Irishman  of  to-day, 
like  his  nation,  is  as  hopeful  as  any  man  in  the  past  time. 

Have  we  not  a  proof  of  their  love  ?  Ah  !  my  friends,  who  is 
it  that  remembers  the  old  father  and  mother  at  home  ?  Who  is 
it  among  the  emigrants  and  strangers  coming  to  this  land, 
whose  eye  fills  with  the  ready  tear  as  soon  as  he  hears  the 
familiar  voice  reminding  him  of  those  long  in  their  graves  ?  Who 
is  it  that  is  only  waiting  to  earn  his  first  ten  dollars,  in  order  to 
send  it  home  to  his  aged  father  and  mother?  Who  is  it  that 
would  as  soon  think  of  cutting  out  his  tongue  from  the  roots, 
or  to  take  the  eyes  out  of  his  head,  as  abandon  the  wife  of  his 
bosom  ?  The  true  Catholic  Irishman.  These  things  are  matters 
of  observation  and  experience,  just  as  the  past  is  a  matter 
of  history.  And,  therefore,  I  say  that  Irishmen  to-day  are  not  un- 
worthy of  the  men  that  are  in  their  graves,  even  though  they  lie 
in  martyr  graves.  As  we  are  true  to  them,  so  shall  our  children 
be  true  to  us.  As  we  were  true  to  them,  so  we  shall  continue 
to  be  true  to  them.     This  is  the  secret  of  Ireland's  power,  the 


588  The  Irish  People  in 

faith  that  has  never  changed,  the  hope  that  never  despairs,  th« 
love  that  is  never  extinguished  ;  dispersed  and  scattered  as  we 
are,  that  love  that  makes  us  all  meet  as  brethren  ;  that  love  that 
brings  the  tear  to  the  eye  at  the  mention  of  the  old  soil ;  that 
love  that  makes  one  little  word  of  Irish  ring  like  music  in  oui 
ears  ;  that  love  that  makes  us  treasure  the  traditions  of  oui 
history ;  that  love  makes  us  a  power,  still — and  we  are  a  power, 
though  divided  by  three  thousand  miles  of  Atlantic  ocean's 
waves  rolling  between  America  and  Ireland  at  home — but 
the  Irishman  in  America  knows  that  his  brother  at  home 
looks  to  him  with  hope ;  and  the  Irishman  in  Ireland  knows 
that  his  brother  in  America  is  only  waiting  to  do  what  he 
can  for  the  old  land.  What  is  it  you  can  do? — that  is 
the  question.  I  answer,  be  true  to  your  religion,  be  true 
to  your  fatherland,  be  true  to  your  families  and  to  your- 
selves, be  true  to  the  glorious  Republic  that  opened  her  arms 
to  receive  you  and  give  you  the  rights  of  citizenship.  Be 
true  to  America.  She  has  already  had  a  sample  of  what  kind 
of  men  she  received  when  she  opened  her  arms  to  the  Irish. 
They  gave  her  a  taste  of  it  at  Fredericksburg,  fighting  her 
battles  ;  they  gave  her  a  sample  of  it  all  through  those  terrible 
campaigns  ;  she  knows  what  they  aro,  and  begins  to  prize  them. 
Fear  not,  when  you  do  justice  to  your  Irish  brains  and  intellect 
by  education-,  and  to  your  Irish  minds  by  temperance,  and  to 
your  Irish  hands  by  the  spirit  of  industry  and  self-respect,  your 
holy  religion  will  do  the  rest,  and  uniting  you  like  one  man  in 
faith,  animating  you  in  hope,  inflaming  your  hearts  in  charity, 
will  make  you  a  mighty  influence  in  this  great  land — be  men  ; 
even  in  this  land,  I  say,  be  Irishmen.  Then  the  day  will  come 
when  this  great  Irish  element  in  America  will  enter  largely  intc 
the  council-chambers  of  this  mighty  nation,  and  will  shape  her 
policy,  will  form  her  ideas  and  her  thoughts  in  a  great  measure, 
pressing  them  in  the  strong  mold  of  Catholicity  and  of  justice. 
And  when  that  day  comes  to  us,  I  would  like  to  see  who  would 
lay  a  "  wet  finger  "  on  Ireland.  This  is  what  I  mean  when  I  tell 
you  what  Ireland  hopes  from  America.  Ireland's  bone  and 
sinew  is  in  America  ;  and  it  is  in  the  intelligence  of  her  children 
in  America,  in  their  religion  and  their  love,  in  the  influence 
which  that  faith  and  enlightenment  will  assuredly  bring  them, 
that  Ireland  hopes. 


Their  Relation  to  Catholicity.  539 

Suppose  that  for  Ireland  some  coercion  bill  is  going  to  pass, 
and  some  tyrant  is  going  to  trample  upon  the  old  nation.  If 
the  Irishman  knows  the  position  of  his  countrymen  in  America, 
he  will  say,  "  Hold  on,  my  friend  ;  don't  begin  until  you  get  a 
dispatch  from  Washington.  Hold  on,  my  friend ;  there  are 
Irish  Senators  in  the  great  Senate  ;  there  are  Irish  Congressmen 
in  the  great  Congress  ;  there  are  Irishmen  in  the  Cabinet ;  there 
are  Irishmen  behind  the  guns  ;  there  are  Irishmen  writing  out 
political  warnings  and  protocols ;  there  are  Irish  Ambassadors 
at  the  foreign  courts  ;  learn  what  they  have  to  say  before  you 
trample  upon  us."  This  is  what  I  mean  when  I  speak  of  what 
you  can  do  for  your  mother-land,  and  what  Ireland  hopes  and 
expects  from  you. 

And  now,  my  friends,  you  know  that,  whatever  way  a  priest 
may  begin  his  lecture,  when  he  goes  through  it  he  always  ends 
with  a  kind  of  exhortation.  In  the  name  of  God  let  us  make 
a  resolution  here  to-night  to  be  all  that  I  have  described  to  you 
— all  an  Irishman  ought  be — and  leave  the  rest  to  God. 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH  THE  TRUE 
REGENERATOR  OF  SOCIETY. 


[Delivered  in  the  Church  of  the  Immaculate  Conception,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  or 
Sunday,  May  26th,  1872.] 

Y  FRIENDS : — The  theme  which  I  have  chosen  upon 
which  to  address  you  is  "  The  Catholic  Church  the 
Only  and  True  Regenerator  of  Society."  The  first 
thought  that  naturally  comes  to  the  mind  is,  that  so- 
ciety must  be  sick,  infirm,  diseased — rotten,  if  you  will — before 
it  can  require  regeneration.  Reflect  to  what  things  we  apply 
this  word,  to  regenerate.  When  a  system  which  was  once 
good  has  degenerated,  and  becomes  bad,  men  say  that  it  ought 
to  be  regenerated  ;  which  means  that  it  ought  to  be  reformed. 
When  a  race  becomes  demoralized — when  bad  blood  gets  into 
it,  to  weaken  the  intellect  and  heart — when  it  seems  to  be 
fading  away — it  must  be  regenerated ;  that  is  to  say,  it  must 
get  an  infusion  of  fresh  blood.  So  it  is  that  we  speak  of  society. 
When  we  speak  of  the  regeneration  of  society,  we  must  admit 
at  once  that  this  nature  of  ours,  which  composes  human  soci- 
ety, is  a  fallen  nature.  This  must  be  taken  for  granted 
before  we  speak  of  that  nature's  regeneration.  Therefore, 
before  I  come  to  the  remedy,  it  is  well  that  I  should  seek  to 
describe  the  disease ;  just  as  when  a  physician  is  called  in  to 
attend  a  sick  person,  before  he  prescribes  the  remedy,  before 
ever  he  writes  the  prescription,  or  tells  the  persons  about  him 
what  they  have  to  do,  he  inquires,  "  How  is  this?  What  are 
the  patient's  sufferings  ?  What  is  his  disease  ?  "  So,  too,  he  ex- 
amines the  symptoms ;  he  asks  the  persons  around  him,  "  How 
long  has  he  been  sick?     How  long  has  he  been  ailing  ?"  and  so 


The  Catholic  Church  the  True  Regenerator  of  Society.       591 

en,  until  he  masters  the  disease.  Then,  and  only  then,  can  he 
see  his  way  directly  to  an  efficacious  remedy.  Well,  my  deai 
friends,  guided  by  the  light  of  divine  revelation,  we  know  tb  it 
when  Almighty  God  made  man,  He  did  not  make  a  diseased  or 
corrupt  creature.  "  Deus  fecit  hominem  rectum"  says  the  Scrip- 
ture. God  made  man  right.  God  made  him  in  the  integrity 
of  his  nature.  God  added  to  the  integrity  of  that  nature  a 
higher  form — the  gift  of  divine  grace.  Consider  what  we  were, 
my  friends,  when  God  first  made  us.  He  made  man  composed 
of  a  human  body  and  an  immortal  soul ; — the  body,  with  all  its 
senses,  with  all  its  inclinations,  with  all  its  necessities  ;  and  into 
that  body — formed  of  the  slime  of  the  earth — Almighty  God 
breathed  a  living  spirit — the  image  of  Himself.  Out  of  the 
union  of  that  clay  with  the  spirit  which  was  heavenly — which 
came  from  the  mouth  of  God — out  of  these  two  arose  the  hu- 
man being  called  man — the  beautiful  link  wherein  the  mere 
material,  gross,  and  corruptible  creation  of  this  earth  is  united 
with  the  spiritual  and  incorruptible  nature  of  heaven  ;  the  one 
magnificent  bond  wherein  matter  and  spirit  meet.  And,  when 
the  soul  and  body  first  met  in  man,  in  that  moment  of  his  crea- 
tion, they  met,  my  dear  friends,  not  as  enemies  but  as  friends — 
there  was  perfect  concord  between  body  and  soul — perfect  sym- 
pathy. The  soul  was  created  to  govern  the  body  ;  the  soul  was 
created  to  direct  every  desire,  every  impulse — to  guide  and 
direct  every  passion  and  inclination  of  man.  The  beauty  of 
man's  nature  lay  in  this,  that  everything  that  was  inferior  in 
him  bowed  to  the  superior,  as  that  superior  itself  bowed  down 
to  God ;  and  therefore  the  beautiful  order  in  which  God 
made  man  lay  in  this  :  He  gave  to  man  an  intelligence  capa- 
ble of  knowing  and  recognizing  his  Maker  ;  He  filled  that  in- 
telligence with  the  light  of  His  own  divine  knowledge.  He 
gave  to  man  a  will  which  was  to  be  guided  by  the  instinct  and 
dictation  of  that  enlightened  and  magnificent  intelligence  ;  a 
will  which  was  perfectly  subject  to  the  intellect,  as  the  intel 
lect  was  to  God.  He  gave  to  man  a  heart  and  affections  that 
were  to  be  governed  by  that  will.  They  were  never  to  rebel 
against  that  will.  That  heart  and  those  affections  were  to  be 
perfectly  submissive  and  subordinate  to  the  power  of  the  will  of 
man.  He  gave  to  man  bodily  passions,  inclinations,  senses,  and 
desires,  which  were  all  subjected   to  the  dictates  of  that  pure 


592  The  Catholic  Church 

heart.  As  the  heart  was  controlled  by  a  perfectly  free  will,  there 
was  no  passion  in  man,  no  bodily  inclination,  no  desire  that  re- 
belled for  an  instant,  but  was  perfectly  subjected  ; — the  affections 
and  will  were  subject  to  the  guidance  of  man's  intelligence — 
which  in  turn  bowed  down  to  God.  Then,  beneath  man  and 
around  him,  every  creature  of  God — the  lion  and  the  tiger  that 
roamed  the  forests ;  the  mountain  stag  that  browsed  upon 
the  hill-side ;  the  fishes  that  swam  the  deep ;  the  eagle  that 
spread  out  its  strong  pinions  to  wing  the  healthy  air,  until  he 
soared  amongst  the  clouds  and  gazed  upon  the  sun — all  these 
were  as  subject  to  man  as  man's  body  was  to  his  soul,  and  as 
man's  soul  was  to  God.  And,  consequently,  unfallen  man  was 
acknowledged  the  lord  and  emperor  of  this  earth.  At  the  sound 
of  his  magic  and  imperial  voice,  the  winding  serpent  came  forth 
out  of  his  hole  in  the  earth,  no  poison  in  his  fangs.  At  the 
sound  of  his  voice,  the  eagle  descended  from  her  eyrie  in  the 
summit  of  the  mountains,  fluttering  like  a  dove  to  his  feet.  At 
the  sound  of  his  voice,  the  tiger  and  the  lion  came  forth  from 
their  lair,  and  licked  the  feet  of  their  master,  man.  Behold, 
then,  the  order  in  which  God  created  this  world — He  Himself 
first  commanding  all  things.  The  first  precepts  of  God  fell  upon 
the  intelligence  of  man.  That  power  acknowledged  them  ;  the 
very  obedience  brought  strength  to  him  who  obeyed ;  and  every 
inferior  faculty  of  his  soul,  and  every  affection  of  his  heart,  was 
governed  by  and  subject  to  the  intelligence  as  the  body  was 
subject  to  the  soul ;  so  that  there  was  an  infinite  beauty  in  man. 
Then  all  things  acknowledged  him  as  their  ruler  and  their  master. 
Oh !  would  it  not  be  grand  if  Adam  had  not  sinned  and  de- 
stroyed the  integrity  of  the  soul— the  magnificent  spirit  of  man, 
without  any  disease,  without  any  infirmity  1  Thus,  man,  not 
knowing  what  it  was  to  shed  a  tear  of  sorrow — man,  not  know- 
ing one  moment's  anxiety,  and  in  the  strength  and  in  the  power 
of  his  friendship  with  God — would  be  the  complete  being ;  the 
acknowledged  ruler  of  all  things,  of  earth  itself,  even  inani- 
mate earth,  impregnated  with  blessings,  bringing  forth  all  that 
was  most  pleasing  to  the  eye  and  delightful  to  the  senses — ful- 
filling the  order  for  which  it  was  created — well  pleased  to  give 
delight  to  its  imperial  master,  man.  If  Adam  had  been  faith- 
ful, human  society  would  never  require  a  regenerator,  because 
it  would  never  have  fallen  from  the   high  and  perfect  thing 


The  True  Regenerator  of  Society.  593 

that  God  made  it  in  the  beginning.     But  anion  fts  that 

God  gave  to  man,  there  was  this— He  gave  him  a  free  will— a 
freedom  of  will,  which  God  Himself  respected.  He  said  to  the 
unfallen  creature:  "Before  thee,  O  man,  arc  life  and  death; 
before  thee  are  virtue  and  vice  ;  before  thee  are  heaven  and 
hell ;  before  thee  are  life  eternal,  and  death  eternal.  Thou  must 
choose,  O  man,  which  of  those  two  thou  wilt  have."  For 
with  all  his  gifts— all  the  grandeur  and  integrity  of  his  nature, 
man  would  never  be  worthy  of  a  throne  in  the  kingdom  of 
heaven — of  God's  eternal  glory,  until  he  had  first,  by  an  act  of 
his  own  free  will,  chosen  to  serve  that  God,  and  put  from  him 
the  temptation  that  would  lead  him  from  God's  friendship  and 
love.  That  temptation  came.  It  is  the  mystery  of  these  things 
of  which  St.  Paul  speaks  in  this  day's  Epistle,  when  he  says  : 
"  Oh  the  depth  of  the  riches  of  the  knowledge  of  the  wisdom 
of  God :  how  unsearchable  are  his  ways."  That  temptation 
came.  The  first  man  forgot  all  that  he  was  in  his  desire  to  be- 
come something  that  he  was  not.  He  plucked  the  fatal  fruit  of 
knowledge  ;  and  he  fell  from  all  that  God  had  made  him.  He 
lost  the  integrity  of  his  nature  ;  he  lost  all  the  gifts  of  Divine 
grace  ;  he  lost  knowledge — the  clear,  intellectual  comprehen- 
sion, the  pure  love,  the  exalted,  powerful,  and  unselfish  free 
will,  unshackled  as  the  eagle's  wing — all  were  lost  to  him  by 
sin  ;  and  he  became  what  we  are  so  familiar  with — the  man  of 
two  thousand  years  ago — the  man  of  to-day — confined  in  his 
intellect,  and  with  labor  acquiring  a  little  knowledge  ;  while,  if 
he  had  not  sinned,  he  would  have  glanced  at  all  things,  and 
have  known  them.  He  became  enslaved  in  his  will,  subject  to 
these  unruly  shocks  of  passion  and  to  the  wicked  desires  of  his 
base  inclination,  which  he  was  created  to  govern  and  rule,  but 
by  no  means  to  be  governed  by  ;  much  less,  to  let  it  draw  him 
from  one  abyss  to  another,  until  he  finds  his  level  in  hell.  Narrow, 
selfish,  earthly,  and  licentious  in  his  love,  the  first  principle  of 
love  no  longer  seems  to  be  an  expansion  of  the  heart,  seeking 
the  highest,  purest,  and  most  intellectual  object,  and  bringing  to 
that  object  the  strength  of  his  undivided  and  pure  affection.  No  ; 
but  it  is  now  a  mean,  wretched,  self-seeking,  brutal  desire  to 
concentrate  whatever  there  is  of  passion  and  of  lustful  enjoy- 
ment in  self,  and  keep  it  there  if  he  can,  yet  in  the  pursuit  and 
enjoyment  of  it  to  allow  the  erratic  heart  to  spread  itself  out  like 

38 


594  The  Catholic  Church 

water  upon  the  pathway  of  sin  and  of  sinful  desires.  Maa 
sinned  :  he  refused  to  acknowledge  Almighty  God  :  the  very 
first  creature  that  rebelled  against  God  was  the  intelligence  of 
man  that  refused  to  acknowledge  the  argument  of  obedience. 
The  sin  of  Adam  did  not  begin  with  the  will ;  it  began 
with  the  intelligence.  Before  he  made  up  his  mind  and  de- 
termined he  would  violate  the  precept,  he  thought  over  the 
argument :  "  God  tells  me  that  I  must  not  eat  of  this  tree, 
because  if  I  do  I  shall  acquire  knowledge.  This  serpent  tells 
me  that  the  knowledge  will  make  me  like  to  God."  Then  he 
sinned  ;  he  looked  upon  it ;  he  plucked  the  fruit  ;  ate  of  it ;  and 
consummated  his  sin  from  that  day. 

The  moment  man's  intelligence  rebelled  against  God,  that 
moment  there  was  complete  subversion  and  destruction  of  that 
fair  order  that  Almighty  God  had  created  in  the  world.  The 
moment  man's  intelligence  rebelled  against  God,  that  moment 
man's  will  refused  to  obey  the  dictates  and  reason  of  that  intel- 
ligence any  more ;  that  moment  man's  passions  arose  up  in 
rebellion  in  him.  The  newly-made  sinner  looked  around  him, 
not  knowing  this  mystery  that  was  developed  within  him,  not 
knowing  whence  came  those  unruly  desires  that  he  could  no 
longer  govern — whence  came  those  fierce  passions  that  poisoned 
every  affection  of  his  heart ;  and  he  must  fain  accept  as  rulers, 
things  that  were  beneath  him.  In  this,  there  fell  upon  him  a 
deeper  degradation  even  than  the  first  sin  of  Adam.  Man's 
own  nature  rebelled  against  him  ;  his  body  of  clay,  literally  and 
truly  a  body  of  clay,  which  was  created  to  serve  and  subserve 
the  purpose  of  the  mind,  and  of  the  soul — that  very  body  arose 
up  and.  demanded  homage  of  the  soul,  in  the  gratification  of 
every  base  bodily  desire.  So  the  very  clay  of  his  composition 
became  and  took  the  place  of  that  God  whom  he  had  offended 
by  sin.  And,  as  it  was  with  man's  soul,  so  it  was  with  the  world 
around  him.  Nature  refused  to  obey  the  humiliated  rebel. 
The  face  of  nature  grew  hard  and  stubborn.  Upon  the  rose, 
that  bloomed  to  charm  every  sense  of  man,  there  grew  now  the 
sharp  thorn  ;  and  in  his  path  the  fruitless  thistle,  and  the  un- 
healthy weed,  to  poison  him  with  its  taste,  to  offend  him  with  its 
smell,  and  to  warn  him  away,  so  as  to  refrain  from  its  touch. 
Why  should  nature  obey  the  rebel  ?  The  animate  and  inanimate 
teemed  to  be  impregnated  with  the  curse,  "Accursed  is  the 


The   True  Regenerator  of  Society.  59  j 

earth  in  thy  work  to-day,"  were  the  words  of  Almighty  God  to 
the  sinner.  Why  should  animated  nature  obey  the  rebel  against 
God  ?  The  lion  and  the  tiger  flashed  anger  from  their  ej 
full  of  meekness  before:  they  beheld  in  the  rebellious  man,  one 
like  themselves,  whom  it  was  lawful  for  them  to  fall  upon,  to 
seize,  and  to  tear  in  pieces,  and  devour.  The  eagle  that  soared 
away  through  the  clouds  seemed  to  have  lost  all  respect  for  that 
magic  voice  that  could  once  call  it  down  from  its  highest  flights 
in  the  air.  No  longer  will  he  heed  the  voice  of  fallen  man,  no 
more  than  he  heeds  the  growling  of  the  wild  beasts,  or  the 
lowing  of  the  steer  upon  the  hill-side.  All  nature  rebelled 
against  man.  The  fair  work,  the  beautiful  work,  the  harmonious 
work  that  came  from  the  divine  mind,  from  the  infinite  love  of 
God — all  is  spoiled — destroyed,  broken  up  and  corrupted  by  the 
sin  of  man ;  and  as  revelation  tells  us,  for  four  thousand  years 
the  model  man  was  destroyed  in  Adam,  and  did  not  appear 
again.  For  four  thousand  years,  sin  after  sin,  curse  after  curse 
accumulated  upon  the  earth,  until  all  that  had  the  slightest  ray 
of  divine  knowledge  had  disappeared ;  and  the  word  of  the 
Psalmist  was  fulfilled  :  "  Truth  is  diminished  amongst  the  chil- 
dren of  men ;"  until,  as  it  went  on,  men  arrived  at  such  a  degra- 
dation of  sin  that  they  actually  deified  their  sins,  their  impurity, 
their  dishonesty,  their  revenge;  and  every  vile  excess  received  the 
name  of  God.  Thus  it  was  that  sin  acknowledged,  and  embodied, 
and  personified,  was  lifted  up  on  their  altars  so  that  they  not 
only  avowed  their  sin,  but  adored  it ;  so  that  the  principle  of 
iniquity  became  a  God  of  the  world.  In  four  thousand  years, 
men  sought  in  vain  for  light :  there  was  no  light.  Men  sought 
in  vain  for  grace :  there  was  no  grace.  The  model  man  was 
destroyed  in  Adam  :  the  man  who  was  to  be  the  regenerator 
had  not  yet  come.  The  second  model  of  Almighty  God  had 
not  yet  appeared  upon  the  earth. 

But  the  years  rolled  on  ;  and  now  four  thousand  years  had 
passed  away ;  and  suddenly  the  heavenly  clouds  are  pregnant 
with  mercy:  the  rain  of  salvation  drops  upon  the  earth.  The 
golden  gates  of  heaven  are  withdrawn,  not  as  of  old  to  rain 
down  a  deluge  of  water,  to  sweep  away  mankind  ;  not  as  of  old 
to  rain  down  living  fire  upon  the  iniquities  of  man.  Oh  !  no 
but  to  rain  down  the  dew  of  divine  mercy — the  Eternal  Son  of 
God      The  second  person  of  the  adorable  Trinity — true  God  0/ 


596  The  Catholic  Church 

true  God,  the  Creator  of  all  things — became  incarnate  by  the 
Holy  Ghost  of  the  Virgin  Mary;  He  came  down  from  heaven  , 
He  became  true  man  in  Mary's  womb ;  He  is  born  of  the  Vir- 
gin Mother ;  He  rested  in  her  pure  immaculate  arms  as  He 
rested  on  His  throne  in  heaven.  Behold  Jesus  Christ,  the  Re- 
generator, in  whom  our  nature  is  restored  to  something  far 
more  grand  than  it  lost  in  Adam.  Behold  the  Regenerator  of 
the  world — the  man-God,  Jesus  Christ,  to  whom  be  all  honor 
and  glory  !  And  now  you  see  the  disease.  If  you  wish  to  know 
the  cure,  all  you  have  to  do  is  to  look  at  the  divine  Redeemer; 
study  Him  well ;  study  His  actions  ;  see  what  He  did  ;  see  what 
He  was  ;  and  then  you  will  see  in  what  consists  the  regeneration 
of  the  world. 

The  sin  of  Adam  brought  three  great  curses  from  heaven. 
Three  tremendous  evils  were  brought  upon  the  world  by  Adam's 
sin.  The  first  of  these  was,  that  God  himself  withdrew  from 
man.  Until  the  sin  of  Adam,  God  loved  to  come  down  to  walk 
in  the  Garden  of  Eden ;  and,  in  the  evening  time,  when  the  sun 
was  sinking  slowly,  and  declining  in  the  west,  God  loved  to 
walk  in  the  groves  of  Paradise  with  His  unfallen  creature,  man. 
Amongst  so  many  other  privileges  that  man  possessed,  of  nature 
and  of  grace,  he  enjoyed  "the  high  privilege  of  fellowship,  of 
society  with  God.  Is  it  not  so?  u  Deliciae  mcae  esse  cum  filiis 
homimim."  My  delight  is  to  be  with  the  sons  of  men.  The 
first  effect  of  the  sin  of  Adam  was  the  loss  of  Almighty  God's 
presence.  God  came  again,  once,  and  only  once ;  and  then 
He  spoke  in  anger.  He  left  the  inheritance  of  a  curse  behind 
Him.  Then  He  withdrew  into  His  high  heavens.  No  man 
beheld  His  face ;  no  man  heard  His  voice  again  ;  if  that 
voice  was  heard,  it  was  in  the  thunders  and  heavings  of  Sinai, 
striking  terror  into  every  man  who  heard  it.  And  we  read,  that 
when  He  appeared,  the  prophet  of  old  hid  his  face  in  the  sand, 
"  lest  he  might  see  the  Lord  and  die."  Everything  surrounding 
Almighty  God,  after  that  sin  of  Adam,  had  changed.  The  Lord 
spoke  in  a  language  of  terror ;  when  He  came  to  speak  to  His 
people  it  was  not  in  the  language  of  sweetness  as  of  old  they 
heard  Him;  but  it  was  a  voice  of  vengeance,  and  of  the  fury  ot 
God.  The  loss  of  God  was  the  first  effect  of  Adam's  sin — the 
first  terrible  effect. 

The  next  effect  of  sin  was,  that  the  Lord  withdrew  the  know!- 


The   True  Regenerator  of  Society.  597 

edge  of  himself  from  the  earth.  Oh,  my  friends,  how  the  ear  of 
unfallen  man  drank  in  the  music  of  God,  as  he  listened  to  the 
voice  of  God  in  the  Garden  of  Eden.  God  spoke  to  man,  and 
the  air  around  re-echoed  with  ten  thousand  harmonies,  as  of  the 
most  delicious  song.  God  breathed  that  small,  still  voi 
which  the  Scriptures  speak,  which  filled  the  heart  of  unfallen 
man,  as  he  responded  to  every  concord  of  that  perfectly  attuned 
sound,  and  throbbed  again  at  the  breath  of  that  heavenly  voice 
that  swept  over  him  ;  so  that  it  made  music  in  his  soul,  harmony 
in  his  ear,  and  brought  delight  and  rapture  to  the  heart  of  man. 
It  filled  his  mind  with  knowledge,  the  divine  knowledge  of  faith. 
Hearing  God,  he  had  an  intuitive  knowledge  of  God,  and  the 
divine  nature  of  God,  in  all  its  magnificent  perfection.  When 
God  withdrew,  the  light  and  knowledge  disappeared  with  Him; 
but  it  disappeared  slowly.  For  many  ages  man  kept  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  true  God.  The  sun  set,  indeed,  but  it  set  slowly. 
The  darkness  of  utter  night  did  not  come  on  suddenly  ;  but  still 
the  light  was  sinking  into  evening,  and  night  came  on  apace. 
The  sun  of  divine  knowledge  set  slowly,  but,  oh!  how  effectu- 
ally, into  the  ocean  of  ignorance  :  and  there  was  no  light,  no 
life,  no  truth  amongst  men  ;  and  the  intellectual  and  moral 
atmosphere  was  darkened ;  all,  all  was  black  in  the  blackness 
of  night.  This  was  the  sad  complaint  of  the  prophet  Isaias, 
when  he  exclaimed,  "  There  is  no  truth,  there  is  no  knowledge 
of  God  in  the  land."  And  the  Lord  said,  even  to  the  Jewish 
people :  My  people  have  been  silent  because  they  have  no 
knowledge.  Cursing,  lying,  and  corruption  overflow  the  land. 
Blood  has  touched  blood,  because  there  is  no  truth,  no  knowl- 
edge in  the  land.  Behold  the  second  great  loss  in  Adam's 
sin  :  the  loss  of  divine  knowledge.  The  thousands  of  forms  of 
human  knowledge  the  soul  refused.  Human  philosophy  found 
•in  the  soul  an  immortal  spirit  that  refused  philosophy  for  its 
food.  There  was  no  nourishment  for  the  heart  of  man  ;  and  yet 
they  boasted  of  their  progress  and  of  their  civilization,  as  men 
boast  now-a-days  in  the  nineteenth  century.  God  is  the  light, 
the  true  light,  coming  from  heaven.  The  light  comes  not  from 
beneath;  the  light  comes  from  above.  You  might  as  well  seek 
the  rising  sun  in  the  darkness  of  night,  as  seek  the  true  light  of 
God  in  all  the  researches  of  human  knowledge  or  human  science. 
Therefore,  this   gospel  of  progress,  this  scientific  gospel,  is  no 


598  The  Catholic  Church 

substitute  for  religion  ;  this  human  philosophy  is  separated  from 
God  ;  and,  from  the  simplicity  of  his  faith,  God  alone  could  give 
divine  knowledge,  his  voice  was  not  heard,  and  the  world  in  its 
wisdom  knew  not  God. 

The  third  great  evil — the  third  loss  of  man,  b>  his  sin- 
was  the  loss  of  Divine  grace.  This  was  even  worse — still  far 
worse  than  the  loss  of  God  Himself,  or  the  loss  of  knowledge. 
It  was  infinitely  greater  than  the  loss  of  knowledge.  It  was 
greater  than  the  loss  of  God  Himself.  I  will  prove  it.  Even  if 
God  had  withdrawn  for  a  time — if  man  had  kept  the  Divine 
grace — then,  at  the  hour  of  his  death,  he  would  behold  that  God 
again.  So,  it  was  the  most  terrible  loss,  for  if  man  had  kept 
Divine  grace,  the  separation  from  God  would  have  been  for  a 
small  span  of  years.  That  grace  would  have  kept  him  holy  in 
purity  and  in  the  gift  of  a  strong,  abiding,  vigorous,  efficacious 
command  over  every  passion,  over  every  inclination,  and  have 
given  empire  to  the  soul  over  the  body,  and  all  other  graces  of 
God  to  the  heart  of  man,  and  to  the  soul  of  man.  But,  by  sin 
he  not  only  lost  the  society  of  God,  the  knowledge  of  God, 
but — most  terrible  loss  of  all — he  lost  the  grace  which  the 
Almighty  God  had  bestowed  upon  him.  So  long  as  that  grace 
was  upon  him  it  made  him  pleasing  to  Almighty  God.  Even 
the  greatest  misery  of  all  the  consequences  of  sin,  the  wavering 
of  the  mind,  the  monotony  of  life,  the  hardening  of  the  heart, 
the  rebellion  of  the  passions,  he  need  have  no  fear  of,  so  long 
as  God's  grace  was  upon  him ;  he  was  still  a  child  of  God, 
dearest  and  most  beautiful  in  his  Father's  eyes.  It  was  only 
when  he  lost  that  grace — it  was  only  when  he  became  the 
slave  of  his  passions,  the  servant  of  his  bodily  inclinations — 
when  he  became  unholy  and  impure — only  then  did  Almighty 
God  regard  him  as  His  enemy — the  man  whose  existence  was  a 
curse,  and  whose  end  was  to  be  everlasting  perdition  ! 

These  were  the  three  losses.  Now  we  will  consider  the  re 
generation,  and  the  remedy  of  the  Redeemer.  He  came.  He 
brought  back  to  us  precisely  the  three  things  that  we  lost  in 
Adam.  Oh,  how  beautiful  was  His  coming !  Oh,  how  tender 
and  loving  was  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  God  !  First,  God  left 
the  earth  with  anger  upon  his  brow  and  a  curse  upon  His  lips. 
He  departed  in  wrath — He  left  the  trembling  sinner  horror- 
stricken  at  His  curse,  while  the  hissing  serpent  wound  his  way 


The  True  Regenerator  of  Society.  599 

into  the  thicket  and  disappeared,  with  this  curse  upon  Him. 
Heaven  and  earth  took  up  the  curse  ;  the  heavens  rained  down 
the  curse,  and  it  sank  like  rain  into  the  soil  of  earth.  It 
brought  sterility  to  the  earth.  It  brought  poison  to  the  snake.  It 
brought  fury  to  the  lion  and  the  tiger,  and  to  the  other  wild  beasts 
of  the  forest.  It  permeated  nature;  and  then  there  was  noth- 
ing but  despair  and  darkness  as  of  night.  How  terrific  was  the 
withdrawal  of  Almighty  God  from  the  earth!  How  sweet, 
how  loving  is  His  coming!  A  virgin  brings  Him  forth;  a 
daughter  of  earth,  most  pure  and  holy,  yet  simply  human — 
"  Of  the  earth  earthly."  A  daughter  of  the  sons  of  men- 
pure,  young,  beautiful,  fit  to  be  the  Mother  of  the  Son  of  God. 
She  was  to  bring  forth  the  Majesty  and  fullness  of  God  in  her 
Divine  Son.  He  was  to  come  forth,  when  He  was  thirty 
years  of  age,  in  the  fullness  of  time  to  preach  the  Gospel  and 
announce  the  truth.  The  very  first  word  that  ever  came  from 
the  lips  of  Jesus  Christ  was  the  word  blessed!  He  went  up 
into  the  mountain  when  He  had  called  the  people  around  Him. 
After  four  thousand  years  silence,  God  is  about  to  speak !  For 
four  thousand  years,  the  echoes  that  were  heard  in  the  groves 
of  Paradise,  during  the  long,  long  ages  passed,  had  re-echoed 
the  curse  of  God.  God  opens  his  lips  and  speaks  :  "  Blessed 
are  the  poor!"  How  beautiful,  how  simple!  For  sin,  God 
cursed  the  earth :  and  He  said,  on  this  day,  to  the  sinner : 
"  Blessed  are  the  poor  !  "  taking  commiseration  on  poverty, 
with  all  its  afflictions — poverty,  with  all  its  humiliations — pov- 
erty, with  its  naked  body  starving — poverty,  despised  and 
rejected  by  the  world — poverty,  with  its  sickness  and  its 
sorrows — the  very  effect  of  sin.  "  Blessed  are  the  poor," 
He  said,  "  for  theirs  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven  !  "  Oh,  how 
beautiful  is  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  God  in  that  day  ;  by  His 
very  presence  amongst  men  He  brought  back  the  first  great 
thing  that  Adam  had  lost.  God  was  lost  by  the  sin  of  man  ; 
man  lost  the  society  and  the  fellowship  of  God.  God  i» 
restored  in  Jesus  Christ.  In  Him  dwelt  the  fullness  of  divinity. 
He  came:  but  He  came  as  God.  You  might  look  upon  Him 
as  one  of  earth,  as  a  little  child,  trembling  in  His  mother's 
arms,  weeping  upon  her  bosom,  did  you  not  know  that  the  new- 
born Infant  is  the  Eternal  God.  God  came  again  to  save 
His  fallen  creature,  man.     God  came  with   blessings  upon  His 


6oo  The  Catholic  Church 

lips,  favor  and  mercy  in  His  hands.  God  came  again  to  speak 
words  that  fell  as  music  upon  the  ears  of  the  sinner  and  the 
afflicted  one.  "  Come  to  Me,  all  ye  who  are  burdened  and 
heavy  laden,  and  I  will  refresh  you."  Come  to  Me,  O  ye 
sinners  ;  for  I  am  not  one  who  requires  much.  Come  to  Me, 
O  ye  afflicted  and  fallen,  that  I  may  lift  you,  and  give  glory  tr 
My  Father,  and  give  joy  for  the  one  sinner  that  doeth  pen 
ance.  For  I  am  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life.  Thus  came 
God,  the  Regenerator. 

Moreover,  He  brought  back  with  Him  what  man  had  lost  by 
sin  ;  namely,  the  truth — the  knowledge  of  truth.  Did  He  come 
to  take  sight  of  the  world — to  observe  with  an  all-seeing  eye — 
to  scan  all  its  imperfections?  Did  He  come  to  judge  the  world, 
to  take  silent  note  of  man's  weakness,  of  man's  ingratitude  for 
favors,  and  of  the  impurity  that  surrounded  him — to  take  silent 
note  of  him,  and  in  His  infinite  wisdom  and  sanctity  to  judge 
him  ?  No.  He  came  not  to  judge,  but  to  save.  He  came 
speaking  as  God — God  proclaiming  to  all  men,  and  to  all  nations 
and  classes  of  men,  the  truth  which  He  brought  with  Him  from 
heaven.  He  spread  that  truth  amongst  men.  He  declared  that 
they  should  "  know  the  truth."  No  longer  should  they  inquire 
after  the  truth.  The  anxious  philosopher  seeking  for  his 
God,  was  a  thing  of  the  past.  Humanity  looking  for  its 
religion  was  a  thing  of  the  past ;  for  the  Eternal  Son  of  God 
said  :  "  You  shall  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make 
you  free."  So  He  gave  to  man  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus  Christ 
our  Lord. 

But  the  loss  of  divine  grace  was  the  most  terrible  loss  ot 
all  to  man — a  greater  loss  than  even  the  temporary  loss  of  the 
fellowship  of  God ;  greater  even  than  the  loss  of  the  knowledge 
of  God.  Oh,  in  vain  would  Christ  have  come  and  given  us  Him- 
self in  His  own  divine  person  ;  in  vain  would  He  have  given  us 
the  knowledge  we  had  lost,  if  He  had  not  also  brought  with 
Him  from  heaven  His  divine  grace,  purifying,  strengthening, 
and  reviving  the  souls  of  men.  Therefore  He  came  not  only  to 
preach,  my  dear  friends,  but  also  to  hear  the  sinner's  confession 
and  to  absolve  him.  He  came  not  only  to  propagate  the  truth 
in  His  preaching,  but  He  came  to  touch  the  eyes  of  the  blind, 
to  open  them  ;  not  so  much  the  eyes  of  the  body  as  the  eyes 
of  the  soul.     When  the  miracle  had  been  performed — when  the 


The  True  Regenerator  of  Society.  6b  I 

blind  man's  eyes  were  opened — he  sought  out  Christ  a. id  said  to 
Him,  Who  is  the  Lord,  that  I  may  believe  in  Him  ?  Then  Christ 
said,  "  It  is  He  that  talketh  with  thee."  And  he,  filled  with 
divine  light,  said,  "  I  believe,  Lord,  and  falling  down  he  adored 
him."  He  opened  the  eyes  of  that  man's  soul  far  more  effectually 
to  the  light  of  divine  truth  than  the  eyes  of  his  body  to  the 
light  of  the  rising  or  the  setting  sun. 

He  came  to  give  grace.  Now,  I  want  to  insist  upon  this. 
Our  age  shuts  its  eyes  to  this  great  feature  of  the  Catholic  Church. 
Men  now-a-days  are  proud  of  their  multitude  of  religions,  and 
call  them  all  religious  truths.  Denying  one  another — opposed 
to  each  other — yet  they  call  them  all  religious  truths  !  And  in 
their  pursuit  of  truth,  I  am  willing  to  admit  and  to  believe  that, 
in  very  many  cases,  they  are  animated  by  a  real,  high-minded, 
pure-minded,  earnest  desire  to  arrive  at  that  truth.  I  would 
not  have  you,  my  Catholic  friends,  imagine  for  an  instant  that 
there  is  no  purity  of  intention,  or  loftiness  of  purpose,  and 
earnestness  of  will  outside  of  the  Catholic  Church.  No  ;  this 
would  be  the  highest  form  of  bigotry.  I  would  not  that  Catho- 
lics were  inclined  to  believe  that  all  earnestness,  all  sincerity, 
and  all  goodness  was  confined  to  us  ;  we  who  have  so  much  that 
we  can  afford  to  be  generous  and  to  be  true  to  those  who  are 
without  the  pale  of  the  Church ;  filled  with  earnestness  in  their 
efforts  to  arrive  at  the  truth ;  yet  every  man  thinking  that  he 
has  the  possession  of  the  truth,  as  it  is  in  Jesus  Christ.  One 
man  says  baptism  is  necessary  for  salvation ;  another  man  says 
it  is  not.  Both  sincerely  believe  that  they  have  the  truth  as  it 
is  in  Christ ;  yet  one  or  the  other  is  believing  and  preaching 
a  lie.  But,  though  I  say  they  are  earnest  in  their  pursuit 
after  truth,  1  don't  say  they  find  it.  I  say  they  do  not.  I  am 
as  sure  of  it  as  I  am  of  my  own  existence.  I  know,  as  I  know 
my  God  is  here,  that  there  is  no  absolute  certainty  of  divine  tiuth 
to  be  found  outside  of  the  Holy  Roman  Catholic  Church.  If 
I  did  not  know  it,  I  would  not  assert  it.  If  I  did  not  believe 
it,  I  would  not  devote  my  whole  life,  in  all  sincerity,  and  in  fra- 
ternal love,  to  try  to  induce  my  fellow-men,  on  every  .side,  to  hear 
me — to  come  with  me,  that  I  might  lead  them  into  that  Church, 
and  let  them  bow  down  before  that  altar.  Would  I,  in  common 
with  my  fellow-priests,  devote  my  life  to  this  truth,  but  because 
we  know  that  this  truth  is  necessary  for  salvation?     But  even  if 


602  The  Catholic  Church 

they  had  the  truth — if  they  possessed  the  truth — the  possession 
of  the  truth  is  not  enough  ;  for  man  stands  in  need  of  something 
besides  the  truth,  namely,  grace.  Truth  alone — even  to  the 
mind  of  man,  the  highest  form  of  truth — is  not  sufficient.  Di- 
vine as  that  truth  may  be,  it  is  not  enough.  We,  Catholics, 
know  the  truth.  Will  any  man  tell  me  that  it  is  enough  when 
he  has  made  an  act  of  faith  ?  Does  any  man  believe  that  this 
is  enough  ?  No  ;  no  Catholic  believes  it :  the  Catholic  Church 
never  taught  such  a  thing.  Why?  Because  Christ,  our  Lord, 
brought  from  heaven  not  only  truth  but  grace.  The  birth  of 
that  grace  and  truth  is  virtue  to  the  intelligence  that  admits  it — 
truth  is  the  proper  object  and  virtue  of  the  intelligence,  grace 
is  the  virtue  and  power  which  acts  upon  the  affections  and  the 
will — the  grace  of  virtue  to  the  heart,  to  the  affections,  and  to  the 
will.  That  grace  is  necessary  for  salvation  according  to  the  word 
of  St.  Paul,  who  says  :  "  By  the  grace  of  God  I  am  what  I  am." 
Nay,  more,  if  you  have  not  that  grace,  which  is  divine  charity, 
you  have  not  vivifying  faith.  Hear  the  word  of  inspiration,  which 
says:  "If  I  should  have  all  knowledge  and  have  not  charity 
it  profiteth  me  nothing."  Do  you  imagine  that  I,  or  any  other 
Catholic  man,  trusts  to  his  knowledge  to  keep  him  in  moments 
of  temptation — to  enable  him  to  restrain  evil  desires,  to  conquer 
his  passions?  If  he  trusts  to  knowledge,  he  will  turn  away,  and 
shut  his  eyes  to  the  power  of  Almighty  God  ;  and,  in  the  moment 
of  blind  trust,  he  stains  his  soul  with  mortal  sin.  Do  you  imagine 
that  we  trust  to  knowledge  to  keep  us  in  the  hour  of  temptation  ? 
Knowledge,  no  matter  how  extensive,  will  never  make  a  man  pure. 
Why,  you  might  as  well  attempt  to  moor  a  vessel  with  a  single 
thread  of  silk,  as  to  keep  down,  by  human  or  even  divine  knowledge, 
alone,  the  passions  of  man.  The  grace  of  God — the  grace  of  God 
obtained  by  prayer — is  necessary  in  order  to  preserve  the  heart  and 
soul  pure  in  the  tumultuous  temptations  of  man's  earthly  life.  This 
grace  Christ  gave  us  in  the  sacraments  :  these  therefore  are  neces- 
sary to  man.  Behold,  then,  in  what  the  generation  of  this  world 
consists.  It  consists  in  restoring,  through  Christ,  grace  to  every 
man  amongst  us — it  consists  in  taking  away  the  evil  of  sin — in 
taking  away  the  corruption  of  sin— and  in  substituting  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  Not  Adam  ;  but  Christ.  Not  Adam,  but  some  one 
far  above  and  infinitely  greater  than  Adam.  For,  as  it  is  usual 
with  God,  when  He  does  a  thing,  to  do  it  perfectly  and  super- 
abundantly— so,  when  He  came  with   the  remedy  for  Adam's 


The   True  Regenerator  of  Soeiety.  603 

sin,  He  brought  a  remedy,  which  left  us  much  greater  and 
more  honored  than  even  the  unfallen  Adam ;  and  it  is  here  in 
the  adorable  sacrament  of  the  altar  of  Jesus  Christ. 

"But  what  about  the  Church  ?"  you  say;  "what  about  the 
Church  of  which  you  came  here  to  preach  to-day  ?  you  did  not 
say  a  word  about  the  Church."  I  know  very  well,  my  friends,  that 
is  all  true.  They  tell  a  story  in  old  Roman  history,  of  a  poor 
peasant  who  had  three  goats  stolen  from  him.  Well,  he  hired 
a  lawyer  to  plead  his  case,  and  to  get  him  back  his  three  goats. 
The  lawyer  came  before  the  judge  ;  the  accused  was  there  also; 
the  lawyer  made  a  splendid  speech.  He  began  with  the  history 
of  the  foundation  of  Rome  ;  he  went  through  all  the  wars  of 
the  Roman  emperors  ;  expatiated  upon  all  the  great  generals 
that  Rome  produced;  and  he  was  about  sinking  down  ex- 
hausted, after  a  long  and  magnificent  effort,  when  the  poor 
man  came  and  spoke  to  him :  "  Will  you  be  good  enough,  even 
now,"  says  he,  "  to  say  a  word  about  my  three  goats?  "  Now, 
I  am  not  going  to  treat  you  in  this  way.  I  have  dwelt  on  faith 
at  some  length,  and,  although,  in  truth,  I  did  not  mention  a 
word  about  the  Church,  I  still  meant  it  all  the  time.  Christ, 
our  Lord,  is  in  his  Church — Christ,  our  Lord,  solemnly  de- 
clared that  He  was  in  His  Church  until  the  end  of  time. 
Christ  declared  simply  and  emphatically,  that,  although  He 
lived  in  His  visible  person  amongst  men  only  thirty-three 
years,  He  intended  to  live  until  the  last  moment  of  the  world's 
history  in  His  Church.  Therefore,  whatever  He  was  yester- 
day, the  same  He  is  to-day.  Now,  mark :  the  Apostle,  St. 
Paul,  says;  "Jesus  Christ  yesterday,  to-day,  and  the  same 
forever."  He  did  not  come  to  do  a  transient  or  ephem- 
eral work.  He  did  not  come  to  teach  men  to  live  again 
after  Him  as  they  lived  before  His  coming.  No;  but  He 
declared :  I  am  come,  not  for  a  day,  not  for  a  time,  but 
for  ever.  I  am  come  to  remain.  Think  not  that  I  am  go- 
ing away.  He  says  to  the  Apostles :  "  I  will  not  leave  you 
orphans.  I  will  come  to  you  again.  I  will  be  with  you 
all  days  until  the  consummation  of  the  word."  Do  not  imagine 
for  a  moment  that  the  work  which  was  begun  at  the  moment 
when  Mary,  at  the  Incarnation,  said,  "  Be  it  clone  to  me  accord- 
ing to  Thy  word  ;"  and  God  was  made  present  in  her  ini macu- 
late bosom  ; — do  not  imagine,  for  a  moment,  that  that  work  has 
ever  ceased.     No;  no.     Before  He  left  He  substantiated  Him. 


604  The  Catholic  Church 

self  in  the  Blessed  Eucharist.  Before  He  left,  He  changed  the 
bread  and  wine  into  His  body  and  blood ;  and  even  as  He 
changed  the  water  into  wine  at  Cana  in  Galilee,  so  He  changed 
the  wine  into  His  heart's  blood  in  the  Eucharist.  Do  not  imag- 
ine that  the  Saviour  went  away  to  return  no  more,  thereby  giving 
the  lie  to  Himself;  for  He  said:  "I  will  come  back.  I  will  not 
leave  you  orphans,  I  am  with  you  until  the  consummation  of  the 
world."  And,  as  the  Regenerator  of  the  world  speaks  through 
His  Church,  whoever  denies  the  Church  denies  Christ.  In  this, 
mark  how  clearly — mark  how  emphatically  and  how  distinctly, 
the  Son  of  God  left  the  three  marks  upon  His  Church  as  in 
Himself.  The  three  great  evils  that  sin  had  done  are  undone  by 
His  Church.  First :  God  was  made  present  in  Christ.  The  truth 
of  God  wasmade  present  in  the  word  of  Christ.  The  grace  of 
God  was  made  present  in  the  action  of  Christ  ;  and  so  it  is  with 
the  Church :  for  He  said :  There  is  one  thing  that  I  will  leave 
you  ;  no  matter  what  else  you  may  be  deprived  of.  They  shall 
cast  out  your  name  as  evil  for  my  sake.  You  may  not  have  the 
smiles  or  the  friendship  of  this  world.  I  tell  you  that  the 
friendship  of  this  world  is  enmity  to  God.  There  is  one  thing 
you  must  have.  I  will  send  my  Spirit  of  Truth  upon  you,  to 
remain  with  you  forever,  who  will  abide  with  you  and  lead  you 
into  all  truth.  The  truth  and  knowledge  of  God  shall  be  in 
that  Church  ;  for  He  says :  "  The  gates  of  hell  shall  never  pre- 
vail against  that  Church.  That  truth  shall  be  upon  your  lips  ; 
and  as  the  Father  sent  me  I  also  send  you  ;  go  teach  all  nations 
to  obey  my  commandments."  I  ask  you,  my  friends,  can  the  word 
of  God  or  man  be  more  clearly  or  more  emphatically  expressed 
to  assure  us  that  the  fullness  of  unchanging  truth  and  the  posses- 
sion of  the  divine  sceptre  was  to  be  bound  to  the  Catholic  Church 
forever?  Is  there  more  than  this?  He  gave  to  that  Church 
power  to  grant  and  confer  grace — that  which  was  the  highesj- 
virtue  of  divine  grace  on  this  earth,  ramely,  the  forgiveness  of 
sin.  When  the  Pharisees  saw  our  Lord  raising  the  dead,  they 
wondered,  to  be  sure.  When  they  saw  Him  opening  the  eyes 
of  the  blind,  and  healing  the  sick,  they  wondered  ;  yet  they 
never  accused  Him  of  blasphemy.  But  the  moment  they  heard 
Him  say  to  the  paralytic  man  :  "  Thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee  !  " 
at  once  they  said  :  "Who  is  the  blasphemer  that  says  He  can 
forgive  sin?"     And  a  perfect  right  they  would  have  to  say  so, 


The  True  Regenerate*  of  Society.  to\ 

if  he  had  not  been  Christ  ;  for  Christ   in  this  would   hav 
a  blasphemer  if  He  had  not  been  God.     Not  alone   in  the  for- 
giveness of  sin  has  Almighty  God  himself  achieved  the  highest 
triumph  of  His  omnipotent  power.     The  gift  of  that  power  He 
gave  to  man,  through  Jesus  Christ.     "  All  power,"  He  says,  "  in 
heaven  and  on  earth  is  given  to  Me  ;  "  and  the  man-God  Jesus 
Christ  distinctly  gave  that   power  to  his  Apostles  ;  for  he  said 
to  them  :  "All  power  in  heaven  and  on  earth  is  given  to  M  ■• 
now.  as  the  Father  sent  Me,  with  all  that  power,  so  do  I  send 
you."     Then,  approaching,  He  solemnly  breathed  upon  them 
as  they  knelt  around  Him,  and  He  said  :  "  Receive  ye  the  Hoi) 
Ghost  ;  whose  sins  you  shall  forgive  they  are  forgiven  them 
and  whose  sins  you  shall  retain  they  are  retained." 

The  truth  of  God  remains  upon  the  infallible  lips  of  the 
Church.  Grace  is  poured  abroad  from  the  sacramental  hands 
of  the  spouse  of  Jesus  Christ.  No  man  can  deny  this,  if  he  ad- 
mits any  meaning  to  the  words  of  the  Saviour.  He  gave  to 
the  Apostles  and  their  successors  individually,  the  essential 
power  to  forgive  sin  ;  so,  in  this  day's  Gospel,  He  says  :  "  Go 
teach  all  nations,  baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and 
of  the  Son>  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost."  Now  I  ask  you  what  does 
this  mean?  "  Go  teach  all  nations!  "  Teach  all  nations  by  the 
power  of  that  word  which  was  to  create  faith ;  for  faith  comes 
by  hearing — not  the  word  of  man,  but  of  God.  Therefore,  it 
was  the  word  of  God  that  was  upon  their  lips  that  spread  the 
faith.  Therefore,  it  was  the  word  of  God,  enlightening  them, 
enabling  them,  strengthening  them  ;  and  as  it  was  upon  the  lips 
of  the  twelve  foundation  stones  of  the  Church  so  it  is  upon  the 
lips  of  their  successors  to-day.  What  does  He  mean  by  saving 
"go,  teach  and  baptize  them"?  What  does  this  mean?  Does 
it  not  mean  that  He  gave  them  power  to  regenerate  that 
which  was  badly  degenerated  in  Adam  ?  Does  it  not  mean  that 
He  gave  them  power  to  apply  His  own  most  precious  blood  to 
save  the  unregenerated,  and  in  the  baptismal  water  to  cleanse 
sin  from  the  soul  ?  Does  He  not  emphatically  give  them  power 
to  deal  with  the  sin  of  Adam  in  one  sacrament,  and  to  deal  with 
individual  sin  in  another?  The  general  admission  of  those  who 
are  outside  the  Church  is  that  baptism  takes  away  sin.  We 
acknowledge  that  baptism  takes  away  sin.  We  acknowledge 
that  it  regenerates  ;  it  gives  new  birth,  and  that  it  takes  away 


606  The  Catholic  Church 

the  sin  of  Adam  from  the  soul.  This  is  really  and  truly  the 
meaning  as  applied  by  the  Church — this  is  baptism — this  is  the 
regeneration.  Great  God !  the  inconsistency  of  men,  who  ac- 
knowledge that  God  has  given  His  Church,  in  one  sacrament, 
the  very  power  they  deny  in  another  !  Why,  the  Saviour  has 
said  most  emphatically,  "  Whose  sins  you  shall  forgive  they  are 
forgiven  ;  whose  sins  you  shall  retain  they  are  retained."  Now, 
my  friends,  in  these  great  attributes  the  Church  of  God  is 
nothing  more  than  the  type  of  Jesus  Christ,  her  Divine  founder. 
Finally,  He  was  not  content  with  giving  His  Church  the  word 
of  truth.  He  was  not  content  with  conferring  on  it  the  power 
of  granting  grace — that  cleansing  grace  for  regenerating  and 
reviving  the  souls  of  men;  but  He  crowned  all  His  gifts  by 
giving  Himself,  and  leaving  Himself  in  the  tabernacles  of  His 
Catholic  Church.  He  gave  to  us  the  essence  of  truth  and  of 
grace  ;  for,  wherever  Christ  Jesus  is,  there  is  the  fountain  ot 
Divine  truth  and  of  reviving,  sanctifying  grace.  In  this  way  the 
Church  is  the  regenerator  of  society.  I  wish  to  show  you — I 
wish  to  bring  home  the  question  more  to  yourselves  in  a  prac- 
tical manner ;  and  I  ask  you,  let  us  suppose  there  was  no  Cath- 
olic Church  in  the  world.  Let  us  suppose,  for  an  instant,  that  she 
was,  as  many  good,  kind-hearted  Protestants  seem  sometimes  to 
think,  namely,  an  idolatress  and  a  falsifier.  When  did  she 
begin  to  be  this  ?  In  what  year  ?  Fifteen  hundred  years  ago, 
let  us  suppose  she  was  this.  Then,  my  Protestant  friend,  you 
have  no  authority  at  all  for  upholding  one  iota  of  Christian 
doctrine.  In  early  days  there  were  more  than  four  Gospels 
written.  The  Catholic  Church  took  four  Gospels  and  rejected 
the  others.  Upon  her  own  authority,  inspired  and  directed  by 
the  spirit  of  God,  she  held  four  Gospels  and  rejected  the  others. 
You  have  these  Gospels  from  the  Catholic  Church.  Deny  the 
existence  of  the  Catholic  Church  for  a  moment,  and  what  have 
you  left  ?  Is  there  a  man  in  this  world  that  could  stand  up  and 
say,  "  This  is  the  truth.  I  am  prepared  to  prove  it  is,  as  com- 
ing from  the  lips  of  Jesus  Christ,"  without  the  aid  of  the  Catholic 
Church?  Tradition  is  gone — truth  is  gone — the  Apostolic  suc- 
cession is  carried  away  ;  the  golden  link  that  binds  this  nine- 
teenth century  with  those  centuries  that  have  passed  away  is 
destroyed  ;  and  there  remains  on  this  earth  not  a  single  voice 
authorized  to  teach  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ !     The  order — 


The   True  Regenerator  of  Society.  607 

the  Divine  order — that  was  established  in  the  first  beginning  by 
Almighty  God,  before  ever  Adam  was  born — that  order  which 
was  destroyed  by  sin  and  restored  by  Jesus  Christ,  and  com- 
pleted by  His  Church — that  order  would  be  destroyed  if  you 
take  away  that  Church.  Let  us  suppose,  for  an  instant,  that 
the  Catholic  Church  were  an  idolatress, — that  the  food  she  gives 
could  be  poison:  who  is  to  hold  men  accountable  if  they  violate 
the  law — if  they  escape  the  human  penalty  of  their  crimes? 
There  is  none  but  this  "  falsifier  and  idolatress,"  to  hold  them 
accountable.  God  has  loosed  his  hold  of  them  ;  and  who  is  to 
hold  them  accountable?  Who  is  to  make  them  examine  their 
consciences  and  make  that  conscience  tender  and  that  soul  pure? 
For  instance,  if  a  man  gets  ten  thousand  dollars  dishonestly,  in 
some  transaction  in  which  the  law  cannot  affect  him  ;  if  that 
man  is  a  Catholic,  the  moment  he  goes  to  confession — the  mo- 
ment he  kneels  to  God's  priest,  and  says  :  "  I  have  made  ten  thou- 
sand dollars  unjustly  " — 'the  confessor  says  :  "  You  must  make 
restitution.  The  curse  of  the  Son  of  God  will  fall  upon  you,  if 
you  do  not  restore  it.  You  need  never  expect  forgiveness,  and  I 
will  not  allow  you  to  approach  the  Altar  of  God,  for  Holy  Com- 
munion, until  you  have  paid  to  the  last  farthing  !  "  A  servant, 
perhaps,  is  in  the  habit  of  pilfering,  day  by  day,  a  little  ;  one 
day  she  takes  away  an  ounce  of  tea  ;  the  next  day  a  bushel  of 
coals  ;  and  so  on.  This  goes  on  undetected  ;  and,  if  you  would 
tell  her  she  was  doing  wrong,  she  would  say,  probably  :  "  Thank 
you,  for  nothing!  I  know  that  very  well,  myself.  It  is  no 
harm,  as  long  as  I  am  not  found  out."  But  the  Catholic  ser- 
vant has  to  go  to  confession  at  Easter  time.  She  knows  that 
she  cannot  approach  the  Altar  for  communion,  unless  she  makes 
up  her  mind  and  her  will  against  all  pilfering  ;  and  that  she 
must  restore  to  the  last  farthing,  all  that  she  has  taken.  I  ask 
you,  in  what  consists  the  regeneration  of  society  ?  What  keeps 
it  sound  ?  Many,  outside  the  Catholic  Church,  say,  "  Oh,  it  does 
not  matter  a  great  deal ;  society  gets  on  very  well !  "  But,  I  tell 
you,  it  does  matter  a  great  deal.  A  young  man  outside  th< 
olic  Church  marries  a  young  girl,  for  the  six  or  seven  years  they 
have  been  together  they  lived  happiiy.  In  an  evil  hour  he  sees  some 
one  :  he  begins  to  love  another  beside  the  wife  of  his  bosom.  That 
moment,  the  devil's  temptations  come  in.  He  gets  the  aid  of  his 
companions  to  help  him  to  rid  him  of  his  wife  ;  and  to  licentious 


608  The  Catholic  Church 

men  like  him,  it  does  not  matter  how.  Her  fair  name  is  lost  b> 
one  breath.  He  goes  into  the  court  and  gets  his  "  bill  of 
divorce  ;  "  and  he  drives  from  her  home,  the  wife  of  his  bosom, 
the  mother  of  his  children,  with  a  lost,  or  a  shattered  character. 
To  the  Protestant  man,  or  a  man  who  is  not  a  Catholic,  my 
words  are  not  of  the  slightest  weight ;  they  are  but  as  the  passing 
breeze.  But,  if  he  can  do  this,  I  tell  you,  the  religion  that  permits 
him,  or  assists  him  to  commit  this  crime — which  is  accursed  of 
God,  because  it  is  breaking  asunder  the  bond  Christ  has  declared 
should  never  be  sundered — is  breaking  up  the  very  foundations 
of  society.  But  if  the  Catholic  man  marries  a  wife — no  matter 
how  bad  he  is — and  there  is  no  man  as  bad  as  a  bad  Catholic — 
a  bad  Protestant  is  nothing  to  him — but,  if  this  Catholic  is  as 
bad  as  bad  can  be,  he  would  never  attempt  to  avail  himself  of 
the  power  that  he  sees  his  Protestant  fellow-man  exercising, 
as  it  is  exercised  by  non-Catholics,  so  freely  in  this  age  of  ours. 
If  the  thought  would  cross  his  mind,  the  Church  of  God  stands 
up,  and  says :  "  My  friend,  God  has  given  you  this  wife — what- 
ever else  you  do — whatever  law  you  break — whatever  crime  you 
commit — whatever  one  you  prove  false  to — you  must  love  that 
woman  ;  for  while  she  lives  you  shall  never  call  another  by  the 
sacred  name  of  wife."  He  dare  not  attempt  it.  He  would  like 
to  do  an  evil  thing  ;  but  he  cannot  do  it.  In  which  of  these 
two  consists  the  regeneration  of  society  ? 

So,  throughout  all,  the  Catholic  Church  is  the  regenerator  of 
society  ;  so  it  brings  out  the  sacred  image  of  Jesus  Christ  as 
it  is  in  man.  The  true  regenerator  of  society  is  that  which 
annihilates  all  that  is  impure  and  bad  in  man,  in  the  complete 
assertion  of  the  intelligence  ;  in  the  dominion  of  the  soul  over 
the  body;  and  in  the  complete  development  of  the  intellectual, 
spiritual,  and  angelic  in  man.  Oh,  where  shall  we  find  them  so 
developed  ;  where  shall  we  find  passion  and  will  so  subdued, 
love  so  enlarged  and  purified,  soul  so  humble  before  God? 
Where  shall  we  find  the  image  of  Jesus  Christ  so  developed  as 
in  these  veiled  ones  that  you  see  before  you,  who,  never  for  an 
instant,  can  admit  into  their  virgin  hearts  one  vain  passion,  or 
to  their  minds  one  thought  of  selfish  love  ;  though  with  hearts 
large  enough  to  let  in  every  form  of  affliction  and  misery  that 
can  present  itself.  And  this  is  the  complete  triumph  of  grace 
over  nature.     Oh,  my  friends,  if  there  are  any  here  who  are  not 


The   True  Regenerator  of  Society.  609 

Catholics,  would  to  God  that  you  could  only  open  your  eyes 
and  see  what  we  see — that  this  Church  of  God  regenerates  that 
life  of  the  world.  The  grace  of  God — the  action  of  God — is 
seen  in  His  Church,  making  everything  instinct  with  life,  filling 
men  with  purity  and  honesty.  Eighteen  hundred  and  seventy- 
two  years  have  passed  away,  and  the  Church  is  as  fresh  to-day 
as  she  was  when  Peter  preached  his  first  sermon.  Many  ages 
have  passed  away  ;  everything  else  on  the  earth  has  changed  ; 
kingdoms  have  changed  :  the  history  of  ages  is  but  the  history 
of  the  Catholic  Church  ;  for  what  she  was  yesterday  she  is  to- 
day, and  the  same  forever,  because  she  is  upheld  by  Jesus 
Christ :  for,  As  He  was  yesterday  He  is  to-day  and  is  the 
same  for  ever.  I  think  that  we  have  sufficiently  proved  that 
if  this  world  is  to  be  regenerated,  sweetened,  and  purified,  and 
preserved  in  that  sweetness  and  purity,  it  must  be  done  only  by 
the  action  of  the  Holy  Catholic  Church. 

39 


THE    CATHOLIC    CHURCH    AND 
THE  WANTS    OF    SOCIETY. 


{Delivered  in  the  Academy  of  Music,  Brooklyn,  on  Sunday  Evening,  June  2,  187a, 
for  the  benefit  of  St.  Augustine's  Church,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.] 

ADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN:  The  subject  on  which 
I  propose  to  address  you  this  evening,  is  the  most  im- 
portant that  could  occupy  your  mind  or  mine,  viz., 
"  What  are  the  great  wants  of  society  in  our  age,  and 
how  are  we  to  meet  them?  " 

The  first  great  question  that  comes  before  every  age,  and 
every  class  of  society,  is  :  How  are  we  to  meet  the  most  pressing 
wants  of  our  people  ?  Now,  what  are  the  wants  of  society  in 
this,  our  day,  and  how  are  we  to  meet  them  ?  That  is  the  great 
question  that  I  am  come  to  answer  to  you  this  evening.  What 
are  the  wants  of  society  in  this,  our  present  day  ?  I  ask  the 
philosopher ;  I  ask  the  statesman ;  I  ask  the  political  econo- 
mist ;  I  ask  the  observer  of  men  ;  I  ask  the  director  of  morals  ; 
I  ask  the  man  who  exults  over  the  success,  and  pines  and  groans 
over  the  sorrows  of  society :  What  are  the  wants  of  our  day,  and 
how  are  we  to  meet  them  ?  I  hold — and  I  think  that  you  will 
agree  with  me — that  it  is  not  this  little,  miserable  thing,  or  that, 
that  ought  to  occupy  our  attention  when  we  ask  ourselves  the 
mighty  question  :  "What  are  the  wants  of  our  age?"  To  be 
sure,  if  you  ask  an  individual  man  what  are  the  wants  of  his  age, 
he  will  narrow  them  by  the  compass  of  his  own  understanding 
and  of  his  own  circle.  I  remember  once  asking  a  shoemaker,  in 
Ireland,  what  he  considered  the  wants  of  the  age  ;  and  he 
scratched  the  back  of  his  head,  and  said  :  "  I  think,"  said  he, 
"  the  great  want  of  our  age  is  to  remove  the  tax  on  leather. 


The  Catholic  Church  and  the    IVants  oj  Society.        6ll 

Now,  it  is  not  in  this  spirit  that  we  come  together  this  evening. 
I  know  that  I  have  the  honor  to  address,  not  only  my  fellow- 
Catholics — (and  many  amongst  them  are  my  fellow-countrymen) 
— but  that  I  have  also  the  honor,  this  evening,  to  address  a 
great  many  Protestant  gentlemen  and  ladies.  And,  therefore, 
before  such  a  distinguished  assembly,  I  must  rise  to  the  dignity 
of  the  occasion,  and  I  must  endeavor  to  meet  their  views,  as 
well  as  to  express  my  own,  in  answering  the  question  :  "  What 
are  the  wants  of  our  age  ?" 

Well,  my  friends,  in  order  to  answer  that  question  properly,  I 
must  ask  you  to  remember  that  we  all  have  three  great  relations. 
The  first  of  these  is  our  relation  to  God.  The  second  is  our 
relation  to  our  family  and  ourselves — to  the  little  world  that 
surrounds  us.  And  the  third  is  our  relation  to  the  great  world 
around  us,  that  constitutes  the  state  and  the  society  in  which 
we  live.  These,  surely,  are  the  three  great  wants  of  every  age. 
Every  age  and  every  condition  of  the  society  of  man  demands, 
first  of  all,  the  tribute  to  God  that  belongs  to  God.  Next  to 
God  in  sacredness,  in  necessity,  in  claim  upon  us,  comes  our 
domestic  family  and  circle.  Thirdly,  comes  the  claim  that  the 
society  in  which  we  live  makes  upon  us :  and  any  man  that 
acquits  himself  properly  of  all  duty  that  he  owes  to  God  above 
him,  to  his  family  around  him,  and  to  the  state  and  society  in 
which  he  lives,  that  man  may  be  said,  truly  and  emphatically, 
to  come  up  to  all  the  wants  of  the  age,  and  all  the  demands  that 
God  and  man  make  upon  him.  If,  therefore,  you  would  know, 
my  friends,  what  are  the  wants  of  our  age,  I  ask  you  to  reflect 
what  is  the  first  demand  of  God  ?  What  is  the  first  demand  of 
the  family?  What  is  the  first  demand  of  society?  You  will  find 
that  the  very  first  thing  the  Almighty  God  asks  of  us  is  Faith  ; 
the  tribute  of  divine  Faith.  The  very  first  thing  that  the  family 
—the  wife  and  the  children— ask  of  every  man,  is  purity  and 
fidelity ;  and  the  great  demand  that  society  makes  upon  every  man 
is  the  demand  for  honesty,  honor,  firmness  of  purpose  :  honesty 
in  his  dealings  with  his  fellow-man  ;  in  all  commercial  relations 
with  society;  in  all  his  administrative  capacity.  Behold,  now, 
in  these  three  relations,  the  three  great  wants  of  our  age.  Our  age 
is  wanting  in  these  three  ;  they  do  not  sufficiently  exist  ;  there  is 
not  supply  sufficient  to  meet  the  demand.  You  know  that  the 
markets  are  always  thrown  out  of  gear,  and  there  is  confusion 


6i2  The  Catholic  Church  and 

in  the  commercial  world,  whenever  demand  and  supply  don't 
meet  each  other.  For  instance :  if  there  is  an  extraordinary 
demand  for  meat,  and  the  butchers  are  not  able  to  meet  it, 
why  all  the  people  are  thrown  into  confusion.  Prices  are  raised. 
There  is  a  rush  upon  the  market.  If,  again,  there  is  a  great 
demand  for  gold,  such  that  the  banks  are  not  able  to  meet  it, 
then  there  is  a  rush  of  people  on  the  banks,  and  you  find  them 
smothering  each  other  in  their  maddened  endeavors  to  get  their 
orders  paid,  and  their  notes  cashed.  And  so  with  supply  and 
demand  in  everything.  Wherever  there  is  not  a  supply 
there  is  a  confusion.  So  it  is  with  this  world  of  ours:  The 
•vorld  demands  three  articles:  Faith,  Purity,  and  Honesty. 
You  will  pardon  me  if  I  say  to  you,  as  an  observer  of  my  fel- 
low-men, we  do  not  meet  the  demand  ;  we  have  not  sufficient 
supply.  We  have  not  sufficient  supply  of  Faith.  What  does 
Faith  mean  ?  It  means  two  things,  my  friends.  Every  man 
who  wishes  to  analyze  what  Faith  means,  will  find  that  it 
means  two  things,  viz. :  first,  certain  knowledge — absolute  cer- 
tainty of  knowledge ;  secondly,  the  practical  knowledge  that 
influences  the  lives  of  men.  There  are  two  kinds  of  knowledge. 
There  is  a  knowledge  that  does  not  contribute  anything  to  the 
sum  of  man's  actions.  For  instance,  if  I  solve  a  problem  in 
mathematics — in  geometry,  say — and  I  come  to  a  fair  conclu- 
sion, and  .prove  my  proposition,  what  then?  Why,  I  have 
gained  a  point  in  knowledge.  But  that  does  not  influence  my 
actions.  It  does  not  make  me  eat  my  breakfast  with  any  more 
appetite.  It  does  not  induce  me  to  abstain  from  this  thing,  or 
that  thing,  or  anything.  It  does  not  make  me  meet  my  friend 
with  more  good  will.  It  does  not  enable  me  to  pardon  an  out- 
rage. It  does  not  enable  me  or  induce  me  to  abstain  from  a 
single  sin.  It  is  mere  intellectual  knowledge.  But  there  is 
another  kind  of  knowledge  which  comes  with  the  power  of  a 
precept ;  which  tells  me,  such  and  such  is  the  case ;  such  and 
such  is  the  fact,  and  you  are  called  upon  to  act  up  to  it.  Such, 
for  instance,  is  the  knowledge  that  I  have  that  I  must  forgive 
the  man  that  injures  me.  I  go  out  in  the  street  with  that 
knowledge,  and  a  man  insults  me,  and,  instead  of  striking  that 
man,  or  resenting  the  insult,  I  quietly  bear  it  and  pass  on.  The 
knowledge  that  tells  me  that  I  must  love  my  neighbor  as  myself, 
and  that  I  must  not  injure  him  in  person  or  in  property,  I  have 


The   Wants  of  Society.  (Jij 

an  opportunity  of  gaining  something  by  injuring  my  fellow-man. 
1  find  that  I  can  step  into  his  place,  that  I  can  get  his  situation 
if  I  can  only  say,  "  He  is  a  bad  man  ;  I  know  he  is  a  bad 
if  I  only  say  that,  his  employer  will  dismiss  him  and  employ  me. 
But  I  remember  the  principle  of  divine  knowledge  that  is  in  my 
mind:  "  Don't  say  a  word  about  that  man;  don't  do  anything 
to  him,  or  say  anything  of  him,  that  you  would  not  have 
done  to  yourself."  And  so  I  refrain.  That  is  practical  knowl- 
edge. Now,  my  friends,  faith  means  knowledge,  and  practical 
knowledge;  and  this  is  precisely  what  our  age  is  deficient  in. 
Our  age  is  deficient,  first  of  all,  in  knowledge.  Take  away  the 
Catholics  that  live  in  every  land — take  us  away — leave  the  rest 
of  mankind — leave  them  under  their  various  denominations — 
Protestant,  and  Methodist,  and  Baptist,  and  Anabaptist,  and 
Quaker,  and  so  on — and  what  knowledge  have  they  ?  What 
knowledge  have  they  that  comes  up  to  the  grandeur  and  the  dignity 
of  faith  ?  God  forbid  that  I  should  conceive  an  insulting  thought, 
or  say  an  insulting  word  of,  or  to,  my  fellow-man.  But  I  ask 
you  to  reflect ;  what  knowledge  have  they  ?  They  are  broken 
up  into  a  hundred  congregations  and  a  hundred  sects.  One 
say^  one  thing;  another  says  another.  I  amused  myself  on 
Monday  morning  by  spending  half  an  hour  reading  the  New  York 
Sunday  papers.  And  there  I  saw,  in  one,  how  Mr.  So-and-so 
said  one  thing.  He  said  that  man  did  not  require  this  thing,  or 
the  other  thing.  Mr.  So-and-so,  in  the  next  street,  said  he  did 
require  it.  There  was  a  holy  Quaker  stood  up  in  one  of  these 
assemblies,  who  shook  his  head,  sighed,  and  "groaned  to  the 
Lord.  '  And  then,  when  he  had  "groaned  to  the  Lord,"  and 
"joined  himself  to  the  Father,"  what  do  you  think  did  he 
He  said  that  "  Our  Lord  and  Saviour,  Jesus  Christ,  was  not  the 
Son  of  God  at  all !  It  was  all  a  mistake  !  "  On  the  other  hand, 
we  had  another  man  saying,  and  saying  truly,  that  "  If  any  man 
asserted  this,  he  was  worthy  of  eternal  damnation  !  "  And  so, 
broken  up  into  a  thousand  various  sects,  a  thousand  opin- 
ions, ask  anyone  man  this — put  him  before  you,  and  say 
me,  friend,  how  do  you  know  that  you  arc  right  ?"  I  le  will  say  : 
"I  know  it,  because  I  find  it  in  the  Scriptures."  "Hut  the 
man  who  contradicts  you  finds  what  he  says  in  the  Scriptures!  " 
"You  say  that  Christ  is  the  Son  of  God?"  "Yes."  "But  low 
do  you  know  that  you  are  right?"    "  I  find  it  in  the  Scriptures.' 


6 14  The  Catholic  Church  and 

"  But  the  Quakers  say — He  is  not.  Ask  them,  How  do  you  know 
that  you  are  right  ?  "  "  Oh,  it  is  in  the  Scriptures !  "  And  so  they 
all  appeal  to  the  Scriptures.  And  why?  Because  the  Scriptures, 
though  they  are  the  inspired  word  of  God,  do  not  tell  one  thing 
to  all  men.  They  tell  you  what  you  like  to  get  from  them ; 
they  tell  you  what  your  opinion  is,  and  what  you  would  like  it 
to  be,  and  they  tell  me  mine.  So  that  there  are  many  Scriptures 
instead  of  one — yours,  and  yours,  and  yours.  And  then,  if  you 
say  to  any  one  of  these  men,  "  Are  you  perfectly  sure  that  you 
are  right !"  "  Oh,  yes  !  "  "  Are  you  sure  now,  so  that  you  are 
beyond  all  possibility  of  making  a  mistake  ?  "  "  Certainly ;  per- 
fectly sure."  "  Then  you  are  infallible !  Why,  then,  you  are 
a  Pope!  What  right  have  you  to  complain  of  the  Catholics 
when  they  say  the  Pope  is  infallible  ?  Can  you  be  mistaken  or 
can  you  not?"  If  they  say  they  can,  then  I  turn  away  at  once 
and  say,  "  My  friend,  I  have  nothing  to  say  to  you.  If  you  can 
be  mistaken  on  this  question  of  religion,  I  want  to  have  not 
another  word  to  say  to  you  ;  because,  if  you  are  mistaken,  you 
might  lead  me  into  a  mistake  too  ;  but  if  you  are  not  mistaken, 
and  if  you  cannot  be  mistaken,  then  you  are  an  infallible  man. 
Now,  show  me  the  promise  that  made  you  infallible !  If  you 
claim  this  infallibility,  why,  in  the  name  of  heaven,  say  that  we 
Catholics  are  idolators,  because  we  say  that  the  Head  of  the 
Church,  the  man  who  succeeded  St.  Peter,  the  man  to  whom, 
through  St.' Peter,  Christ  our  Lord  said  :  "  I  have  prayed  for  thee 
that  thy  faith  fail  not  to  confirm  thy  brethren" — because  we  say 
that  man  is  infallible,  in  his  guidance  of  the  Church  ?  You  say  he 
is  not ;  you  say  the  Church  is  not  infallible — but  you  are!  Now, 
my  friend,  I  don't  believe  you !  It  would  be  something  like  the 
fool  we  read  of.  There  was  a  fool  in  the  county  of  Galway  in 
'98-  the  "  year  of  the  troubles,"  and  General  Merrick  went  down 
to  Galway  and  commanded  the  troops.  They  were  hanging  the 
people  then.  The  fool  saw  the  General  ride  up  with  his  cocked 
hat,  and  the  white  feather  in  it,  at  the  head  of  his  troops.  The 
fool  made  a  cocked  hat  for  himself,  and  put  a  white  feather  in 
it.  Then  he  walked  around  the  town  and  said  he  was  General 
Merrick.  So  it  is  with  every  man  of  these.  He  says  the  Pope 
has  no  right  to  be  infallible.  The  Catholic  Church  has  no 
right  to  be  infallible.  Then  he  puts  on  his  cocked  hat,  and 
says:  But  /am  infallible!     If  you  believe  the  Pope  you   are  a 


The   Wants  of  Society.  615 

fool !  If  you  believe  the  Catholic  Church  you  arc  a  fool !  But 
if  you  don't  believe  me  you  will  be  damned  !  Now,  it  comet 
to  this,  or  it  comes  to  nothing  at  all.  Well  now,  my  friend,  recol- 
lect for  a  moment.  Not  one  voice  outside  the  Catholic  Church  pre- 
tends to  lay  claim  to  knowledge,  but  only  to  opinion.  Each  one 
says :  "  Well,  that  is  my  opinion."  But  I  answer :  "  Opinion  is  not 
faith.  Faith  is  knowledge  ;  faith  is  certain  knowledge.  Faith 
means  not  only  strength  of  opinion  and  power  of  conviction  ; 
but  faith  means  to  know — to  know  the  thing  as  clearly  and  as 
plainly  as  we  know  our  own  existence.  That  is  faith,  and  that 
alone.  For  our  Lord  said  :  "  I  will  not  send  you  inquiring 
about  the  truth ;  I  will  not  send  you  to  form  your  opinions 
about  what  is  the  truth ;  I  will  not  send  you  to  argue  out  con- 
victions about  the  truth  ;  but  I  am  come  to  give  you  the  truth. 
I  am  the  truth ;  you  shall  know  the  truth ;  and  the  truth  shall 
make  you  free."  You  shall  know  the  truth !  You  shall  have 
a  knowledge  of  it  as  certain  and  more  certain  and  strong,  than 
of  your  own  existence.  More  than  this :  Faith  is  a  knowledge 
of  a  practical  kind.  It  tells  us  not  only  what  we  are  to  believe 
but  it  tells  us,  also,  what  we  are  to  do.  It  is  all  very  well  for  a 
man  to  believe  this,  that,  and  the  other  point  of  the  Scripture. 
As  for  instance ;  all  men  believe  in  the  existence  of  God.  All 
men  believe  in  the  Divinity  of  our  Divine  Lord — with  a  few  ex- 
ceptions. All  men  with  the  same  few  exceptions,  believe  that 
He,  coming  down  from  heaven,  came  down  to  redeem  and  save 
us.  And  in  those  sermons  that  you  read,  delivered  outside  the 
Catholic  Church,  you  will  mostly  find  that  they  arc  discussing 
elementary  and  fundamental  truths;  the  atonement  of  the  Son 
of  God  ;  the  wonderful  condescension  of  God  becoming  man.  But 
how  rarely  do  they  speak  about  the  specific  duties  of  man  ?  How 
rarely  do  they  tell  their  people  "  You  must  do  this  or  you  must 
avoid  that."  The  moment  you  enter  the  Catholic  Church,  that 
moment  do  you  find  yourself,  face  to  face,  with  along  list  of  du- 
ties that  belong  to  you  personally.  The  Catholic  Church  lavs 
hold  of  you  and  says:  "See  here,  my  friend,  you  must  go  to 
confession;  you  must  purify  your  conscience;  you  must  pray 
morning  and  evening  ;  you  must  go  to  mass  ;  you  must  frequent 
the  sacraments;  you  must  receive  Holy  Communion,  and  re- 
ceive it  worthily  ;  you  must  fast  on  such  and  such  da) 
must  make  restitution  if  you   have  wronged  any  one ;  and  so 


6i6  The  Catholic  Church  and 

on.  There  is  a  whole  list  of  practical  duties,  which  is  the  very 
first  thing  that  we  meet  when  we  come  into  the  Catholic  Church 
The  reason  of  this  is,  that  in  the  Catholic  Church  faith  ceases 
to  be  a  sentiment,  or  a  mere  act  of  devotion — a  mere  uplifting 
of  the  mind  to  God.  It  is  this,  all  this,  and  more.  It  brings 
with  it  an  immense  list  of  personal  duties  necessary  for  the 
sanctifying  of  every  man.  Now,  I  ask  you,  is  not  this  faith, 
certain  in  its  knowledge — is  it  not  the  great  want  of  our  age  ? 
What  is  the  cry  that  we  hear  now-a-days  outside  the  Catholic 
Church  ?  The  cry  is :  "  Oh,  the  number  of  men  that  are  infi- 
dels !  The  number  of  men  that  never  go  to  Church  at  all ! 
The  number  of  men  that  scarcely  believe  anything !  "  We  find 
so  many  of  them  saying:  "  Oh,  I  don't  care  for  going  to  Church, 
because  I  don't  like  the  preacher!  I  don't  care  about  the  ser- 
mons. I  don't  go  to  Church,  because  there's  no  excitement." 
Another  will  say :  "  I  don't  go  to  Church,  because  it  is  the 
pleasantest  hour  of  the  Sunday,  and  I  like  to  take  a  walk  in 
the  fresh  air."  Another  one  will  say:  "Well,  I  have  my  own 
notions  ;  I  have  read  for  myself,  and  I  think  I  know  more  than 
these  men  who  preach  ;  and  I  don't  go  to  Church,  because  I  think 
I  know  more  than  they."  The  Protestant  faith  so  stands,  prac- 
tically, at  this  hour,  that  there  is  very  little  faith  to  be  found 
amongst  the  cultivated  intellect  that  belongs  to  it.  Very  little 
faith  !  The  very  foundations  of  Protestant  faith  are  being  to- 
day uprooted  by  the  hands  of  Protestant  clergymen.  I  would 
not  say  this  if  I  did  not  know  it.  You  have,  at  this  day, 
among  the  very  finest  writers  in  Europe,  some  Protestant  cler- 
gymen, who  are  suspected  of  infidelity,  from  their  writings. 
One  of  them  will  begin  an  essay  by  saying  it  is  a  very  doubtful 
thing  whether  the  Scriptures  are  the  inspired  Word  of  God  at 
all.  Another  will  begin  an  essay  by  saying :  "We  admit  the 
inspiration  of  the  Scriptures;  but  it  only  teaches  a  certain 
moral  law.  There  is  nothing  supernatural  in  it — nothing  about 
Almighty  God,  or  about  His  revelations  to  be  based  on  it. 
Another  will  throw  a  doubt  on  the  Divinity  of  Jesus  Christ. 
All  these  things  have  been  mooted.  All  these  things  have 
been  said.  My  Catholic  friends,  you  don't  know  what  the 
Protestant  world  is  without  you.  You  don't  know  what  a 
state  of  confusion  there  is  there — there  where  the  Anglican 
b/'shops  in  England  have  cited  Protestant  clergymen  for  infidel- 


The  Wants  of  Society*  617 

ity;  have  piovcd  the  infidelity;  and  where  the  Queen,  by  a 
statute,  told  them  they  were  free  to  exercise  their  functions,  and 
they  were  free  to  teach  the  people.  Some  of  the  very  first  dig- 
nitaries of  the  Church  in  England  to-day,  are  men  suspected 
of  an  utter  want  of  belief  in  the  revealed  Word  of  God. 
And  yet  there  are  Anglican  clergymen,  high  in  position  and 
dignity,  and  in  the  pulpit  every  Sunday  teaching  the  people  the 
Gospel — God  bless  the  mark.  What  follows  fruflri  this  want  of 
faith  ?  Oh,  my  dear  brethren  and  friends,  wherever  the  mind  of 
of  man  is  not  thoroughly  convinced — wherever  man  has  not  the 
certainty  of  knowledge — wherever  the  whole  intellect  is  not  filled 
with  light,  there,  most  assuredly,  in  that  man's  conduct,  and  in 
that  man's  life,  you  will  find  the  works  of  darkness,  and  the  taint 
of  infidelity  and  impurity.  The  man  who,  intellectually,  from 
want  of  faith,  is  an  infidel  to  his  God— that  man,  certainly,  will 
not  be  faithful  to  that  being  that,  next  to  God,  has  the  deepest, 
and  the  most  solemn,  and  the  most  sacred  claim  upon  him ; 
namely,  the  wife  of  his  bosom.  From  that  want  of  faith,  from  that 
want  of  that  certain  conviction  of  all  that  faith  teaches  us,  grows 
het  awful  impurity  of  this  age  of  ours.  My  friends,  I  must  call  it 
"  awful  impurity."  I  read  in  the  history  of  the  world  of  great 
sins — great  sins  in  past  times.  I  read  of  kings  rising  up  and,  in 
the  foul  desires  of  their  lustful  hearts,  violating  every  law.  But 
I  read  in  those  times  of  the  strong  voice  of  the  Pope  of  Rome, 
and  the  strong  arm  from  the  Vatican  put  out  to  threaten  and  to 
coerce  them,  if  not  into  the  pathways  of  purity,  at  least  into 
those  of  public  decency  and  morality.  I  read,  in  the  past,  of 
great  sins  and  great  sinners;  but  I  read  also  that  they  excited 
the  indignation  of  society;  and  that  the  greatest  sinner  of  them 
all  never  attempted  to  justify  his  sin,  or  to  legalize  it,  or  to 
obtain  for  it  the  approbation  of  his  fellow-man,  or  of  the  laws  of 
his  country.  But  we  come  to  this  nineteenth  century,  and  what 
do  we  find  ?  We  find  the  inconstancy  and  the  infidelity  of  man 
legalized,  acknowledged  by  the  State,  in  that  most  infamous, 
most  unchristian,  most  unholy  law  by  which  a  man  is  permitted, 
by  the  laws  of  the  land,  to  break  the  bond  that  he  contracted  in 
marriage  before  the  altar  of  God,  and  to  divorce  the  pure,  and 
holy,  and  high-minded  wife,  who  was  the  first  mistress  of  his 
earliest  love.  I  find  in  this  one  act — the  act  of  divorce — the 
legislation  that  severs  the  bond  that  God  has  made — the  legis- 


618  The  Catholic  Church  and 

lation  that  tells  the  woman,  no  matter  how  pure  she  be,  no 
matter  how  holy  she  be,  that  she  is  never  secure  in  her  position, 
that  she  is  never  safe  from  some  base  conspiracy,  originating  in 
the  depravity  of  her  husband,  anxious  to  be  rid  of  her,  anxious  to 
shake  off  the  incumbrance  of  her  purity  and  her  virtue,  and 
trumping  up  an  accusation  against  her — that  she  is  never  secure 
from  the  insidious  designs  and  diabolical  conspiracy  of  that 
man  ;  that  she  may  not  be  driven  forth  from  his  house,  covered 
with  ruin,  her  name  dishonored,  her  position  lost,  and  not 
knowing  where  to  turn  in  her  mid-career  of  life  or  in  her  old 
age — the  abandoned,  the  injured,  the  down-trodden  woman — 
because  the  State  and  the  laws  have  given  that  man 
power  to  do  it.  I  find  this  demon  of  impurity  thus  destroy- 
ing the  mothers  hold  upon  her  children — taking  from  the 
wife's  brow  that  crown  which  God  set  there,  who  said  to 
her,  in  matrimony,  thou  shalt  be  this  man's  queen ;  thou  shalt 
be  his  partner ;  thou  shalt  be  his  equal,  and  no  hand  shall 
sunder  you  two  until  the  angel  of  death  comes  to  lay  one  of  you 
in  the  tomb ;  I  find,  beside  this  iniquitous  law  of  divorce,  that 
this  awful  sin  of  impurity — this  sense  of  a  want  of  all  re- 
sponsibility before  God — this  feeling  of  perfect  license — has 
affected  the  young,  has  grown  up  with  their  age,  has  entered 
into  their  blood,  has  made  the  young  boy,  growing  into  man- 
hood, think  that  everything  was  lawful  for  him,  until  it  has  be- 
come the  social  pest  and  the  social  evil  of  our  days.  I  need  not 
tell  you,  nor  lead  you  into  details  about  that  with  which,  unfor- 
tunately, the  press  of  this  country  has  made  us  all  too  familiar. 
The  dreadful  sins  that  now  and  then  turn  up,  creep  out  to 
terrify  us,  to  make  every  modest  woman  in  the  land  vail  her 
face  for  shame,  and  every  modest  man  feel  the  blood  rushing  to 
his  brows,  in  shame  and  indignation ;  the  murders  that  are 
committed  ;  the  foul,  nameless  crimes  that  are  accumulated; 
the  awful  infidelities  that  disgrace  the  world  in  our  day; 
the  dreadful  crimes  that,  from  day  to  day,  are  registered 
before  our  eyes,  until  it  has  come  to  this,  that  no  man  or 
woman,  valuing  his  or  her  soul,  can,  with  safety,  take  up  a 
daily  journal ;  for  it  may  contain  we  know  not  what  abomination  ; 
nor  do*  we  know  what  abominable  crime  is  to  be  put  straight 
before  our  eyes.  Whence  comes  all  this  ?  Was  there  ever  an 
age — and  I  don't  believe  there  ever  was — since  Christ  died  for 


The   Wants  of  Society.  619 

man,  in  which  this  dreadful  sin  has  so  propagated  itself  as  in  this, 
our  day — this  dreadful  sin — this  sin,  that,  three  times,  called 
down  the  avenging  hand  of  God  upon  man,  and  always  with  a 
sweeping  ruin  that  destroyed  a  whole  world,  or  a  whole  nation. 
It  was  the  sin  of  defilement,  or  of  impurity  that  made  Almighty 
God,  in  the  first  Flood  draw  back  the  bolts  of  Heaven,  and 
rain  down  on  mankind  that  deluge  of  water  that  washed  away 
the  whole  human  race,  and  destroyed  it.  It  was  the  self-same 
sin,  repeated  again,  that  made  the  same  Almighty  arm  once 
more  withdraw  the  bolts  of  Heaven  and  rain  down  upon  Pen- 
tapolis,  upon  the  valleys  by  the  Dead  Sea,  a  deluge,  no 
longer  of  water,  but  of  fire.  Living  fire  came  forth,  enkindled 
by  the  indignation  of  a  God  of  purity,  sweeping  away  great 
cities,  and  a  whole  nation.  It  was  that  very  same  sin,  repeated 
again,  that  made  the  Almighty  God  send  forth  that  terrible 
command  to  the  children  of  Israel :  "  that  the  tribe  of  Benjamin 
should  be  destroyed  "  and  all  the  cities  and  villages  of  Benjamin 
were  consumed  with  devouring  flames.  So  that  a  whole  tribe, 
and  a  whole  nation  was  wiped  out  of  Israel,  because  of 
that  detestable,  that  fearful  sin  ;  of  which  St.  Paul  speaks, 
when  he  says :  "  Brethren,  let  it  not  be  so  much  as  named 
among  you  !  "  Well,  this  is  the  sin  which  to-day  has  assumed 
such  proportions  that  it  has  actually  lost  its  shame.  I  say,  it 
has  lost  its  shame  !  I  say  it  in  the  face  of  a  community  which 
has  been  insulted,  as  New  York  was  insulted  on  last  Good 
Friday  evening,  whilst  we.  Catholics,  were  weeping  at  the  foot 
of  the  Cross  ;  whilst  we,  Catholics,  knelt  there  with  Mary 
dalene,  and  Mary,  the  Virgin  Mother,  and  the  glorious  friend, 
St.  John — whilst  we,  Catholics,  were  weeping  over  the  feet  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  dead  upon  the  Cross,  on  last  Good 
Friday  evening,  a  woman — a  woman  calling  herself  a  modest 
woman — had  a  congregation — an  audience — to  hear  her  whilst 
she  blasphemed  against  purity,  and  advocated  the  detestable 
principles  of  free  and  indiscriminate  love  ' 

My  friends,  do  not  imagine  that  when  I  speak  thus,  that  I 
mean  the  slightest  reflection  upon  American  society,  or  upon 
American  Protestantism  ?  Well  do  I  know  that,  whatever  is 
vile,  whatever  is  wicked,  whatever  is  unwomanly,  unmaid-nly, 
or  impure,  is  as  foreign  to  American  society  as  to  any  in   fhis 


620  The  Catholic  Church  and 

world.  Well  do  I  know,  that  nowhere  upon  this  eaith  is  there 
an  intelligence,  a  mind,  a  heart,  that  rises  against  all  this  with 
more  bitter  indignation  than  the  intelligence,  and  the  mind,  and 
the  heart  of  Protestant  America.  These  things,  and  such  as 
these,  are  a  sorrow,  not  only  to  us  Catholics,  but  equally  to  our 
respected,  high-minded,  pure-minded  Protestant  fellow-men  and 
fellow-women  in  the  land.  And  I  beg  of  you,  therefore,  to 
understand  distinctly,  that  when  I  speak  in  denunciation  of 
these  things,  I  denounce  them,  and  I  denounce  the  badness  of 
our  age,  not  only  to  you  Catholics,  but  to  my  American 
Protestant  fellow-citizens.  And,  well  do  I  know,  that,  whatever 
is  bad,  or  vile,  that  I  here  denounce  as  a  priest,  in  that 
denunciation,  I  shall  meet  the  sympathy  of  them,  the  American 
Protestants,  just  as  lively,  just  as  pure-minded,  just  as  holy  in 
their  indignation,  as  your  sympathy,  my  Catholic  fellow-citizens. 

The  third  great  want  of  our  age — (I  am  ashamed  to  say  it) — 
is,  as  it  seems  to  me,  to  be  common  honesty.  Formerly,  (and 
you  hear  old  people  speaking  still  of  "  the  good  old  days"  gone 
by,)  people  were  plain  and  simple-minded,  and  it  was  easy 
to  get  through  the  world  ;  but,  now,  as  the  old  people  say, 
'everybody  is  so  mighty  sharp,  and  so  cunning,  and  they  are 
so  ap'  to  turn  a  corner  upon  you  !  "  Formerly,  if  you  bought 
a  piece  <^  cloth  to  make  you  a  suit  of  clothes,  you  might  rea- 
sonably rely  upon  it ;  now-a-days,  you  must  look  sharp,  or 
you  will  get  shoddy."  In  former  times,  as  I  heard  an  old  man 
say,  you  could  buy  a  pair  of  shoes,  and  they  would  last  you 
all  the  winter.  Now-a-days  they  make  them,  so  that  when 
the  wet  weather  comes  in,  in  a  few  days  they  come  apart.  In 
former  days  a  man  knew  what  he  was  going  to  eat ;  now  he 
must  look  very  sharp,  indeed !  His  food  maybe  adulterated, 
or  before  he  knows  it,  he  may  be  half  poisoned  by  what  he  is 
eating.     So  much  for  commercial  honesty. 

What  shall  we  say  of  international  honesty?  Shocked  as 
we  have  been  at  the  mutual  accusations  and  recriminatious  of 
powerful  s^tesmen  and  rulers  in  this  our  day.  As  for  instance 
when  Napoleon  and  Bismarck  accused  each  other  of  designs 
upon  Belgium  and  the  world  was  astounded  at  their  revelations. 
We  have  beheld  the  unjust  invasion  of  Denmark,  the  iniquitous 
usurpations  of  Victor  Emanuel,  the  fraudulent  designs  of 
Russia  upon  Turkey,  in  a  word,  the  principle  practically  estab- 


The   Wants  0/  Society.  021 

lished  that  right,  justice,  treaties  solemnly  made  and  ratified,  arc 
in  this  day  no  security  against  invasion  and  spoliation.  Inter- 
national law  seems  abolished,  else  why  have,  as  in  Europe,  five 
millions  of  men  under  arms.  This  is  international  honesty,  in 
this  our  day.  Do  we  not  see  that  among  all  the  nations  there 
is  no  longer  the  slightest  regard  for  principle  or  for  treaties, 
or  for  right  ?  Not  the  slightest!  There  is  Russia.  She  is  build- 
ing  up  Sebastopol  again  ;  Sebastopol  that  was  destroyed  by  the 
French  and  the  English,  and  which  Russia  swore  a  solemn  oath 
she  would  never  build  up  again.  She  is  going  at  it  now,  openly 
and  energetically,  because  France  is  now  down  in  the  dust,  and 
England's  hands  are  tied  behind  her  back.  So  much  for  inter- 
national honesty. 

What  shall  we  say  of  political  principle — of  political  honesty  ? 
we  hear  nothing,  now-a-days,  but  accusations  against  this  man 
and  that  man  ;  this  "Ring"  and  that  "Ring."  Nothing  but 
confusion!  Impeachment  here;  accusation  there!  One  day 
a  judge  is  impeached.  Another  day  some  other  high  official.  So 
many  thousand  dollars  embezzled.  Such  and  such  crimes  com- 
mitted. This  is  the  whole  history  of  politics,  so  far  as  I  can  see 
it.  Whether  these  accusations  are  true  or  false  I  cannot  tell, 
because  I  do  not  know  the  facts.  Yet  I  believe  there  is  some 
truth  in  them  ;  but  I  also  believe  there  is  a  great  deal  of  false- 
hood in  them.  But  such  is  the  idea  that  the  journals  of  the 
day  give  us  of  political  honesty. 

Oh,  my  friends,  would  it  not  be  very  pleasant  if  the  servants 
who  live  in  the  house  with  us  were  more  honest  ?  If  we,  our- 
selves, were  more  honest  in  our  dealings  with  our  fellow-men, 
commercially?  If  the  nations  were  more  honest,  and  had  a  little 
more  respect  each  for  every  other's  rights?  If  politicians  were 
a  little  more  honest?  These  are  the  great  questions  involved 
ir  this  branch  of  the  subject. 

1  believe,  that  if  all  men  were  to  have  a  certain  "knowledge 
of  divine  truth  " — a  certain  knowledge — no  doubt  of  it — no 
cavilling  in  opinion — if  we  were  able  to  talk  to  every  man's 
mind,  and  say:  "  See  here,  my  friend  !  There  is  the  law  ;  you 
must  acknowledge  it.  You  know  it  is  true;  you  mu-t  act 
up  to  it."  That  is  faith.  If  we  had  that  unity  of  thought;  if 
we  were  all  one  in  the  unity  of  one  belief,  if  we  all  admitted 
the  necessity  of  one  thing,  and  believed  it  ought  to  be  done— 


622  The  Catholic  Church  and 

and  if,  in  addition  to  that,  "and  from  that,  followed  the  self- 
restraint,  the  purity  of  life,  the  integrity  of  nature  preserved 
in  the  youug  by  an  absence  of  all  these  nameless  and  hideous 
excesses — if  the  fidelity  of  God  to  His  Church  was  impersonated 
and  typified  in  the  grand  fidelity  of  man  to  his  wife,  and  of  the 
woman  to  her  husband — and  if,  in  addition  to  all  this,  man  had 
a  sense  of  his  responsibility  in  every  relation  in  which  he 
stands  to  his  fellow-man,  and  to  society :  and  if  morality  and 
honesty  were  so  enjoined  on  each  and  every  one  of  us,  that  we 
would  not  dare  to  be  dishonest,  because  of  the  consequences — 
behold,  the  three  great  evils  of  society  are  healed,  and  the 
three  great  wants  of  society  are  supplied. 

Now,  I  came  here  this  evening,  my  friends,  to  point  out  the 
wants  of  society  to  you,  to  show  you  what  they  are — and  I 
think,  you  will  acknowledge  that,  so  far,  I  have  not  exag- 
gerated. 

Now,  the  second  part  of  my  business  this  evening,  here,  is  to 
show  you  that  there  is  only  one  power  upon  this  earth  that  is 
able  to  meet  these  three  wants,  and  supply  them ;  that  there  is 
only  one  power  on  this  earth  that  is  able  to  remedy  these  three 
enormous  evils ;  and  she  is  able  to  do  it  only  because  she  comes 
from  God — and  that  power  is  the  Holy  Roman  Catholic  Church. 
She,  alone,  can  create  faith.  She,  alone,  can  create  purity. 
She,  alone,  can  guarantee  honesty.  And  thus,  she,  alone,  can 
meet  the  three  great  wants  of  this  age  of  ours.  She  alone  can 
create  faith.  She  comes  to  us  in  this  nineteenth  century  and 
says :  "  Hear  my  voice  and  believe  me !  "  If  we  ask  her, 
"What  right  have  you  to  say  this  to  us?"  She  answers:  "I 
am  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ;  "  no  other  Church  lays  claim  to 
these  my  attributes,  except  myself.  I  ask  you  to  believe  Him 
who  said  :  "  He  that  will  not  hear  the  Church,  let  him  be  as  a 
heathen,  or  an  infidel."  I  ask  you  to  believe  Him  who 
said :  You  may  rely  upon  the  Church,  for  I  have  built 
My  Church  upon  a  rock  and  the  gates  of  hell  shall  never 
prevail  against  it.  I  ask  you  to  believe  my  word  upon 
the  word  of  Him  who  said  :  You  may  rely  upon  the  Church 
that  she  can  never  teach  you  a  lie.  For  I  will  send  my 
Spirit  of  Truth  upon  her  to  guide  her  into  all  truth,  and  to  be 
with  her  until  the  end  of  time ;  and  lo !  I,  myself,  said  He, 
am  with  her  all  days,   until  the  consummation  of  the  world 


The    Wants  of  Society.  623 

Any  man  who  believes  this — who  believes  that  these  are  the 
words  of  the  God  of  Truth — is  bound,  as  a  reasonable  being, 
to  bow  down  before  the  Church,  and  say:  "Speak!  speak 
to  me,  oh  messenger  of  God!  You  have  proved  by  your 
diploma  that  you  have  come  to  me  from  God  !  No  other  religion 
even  puts  in  a  claim  to  this  but  you.  Speak,  therefore,  you, 
and  I  will  hear  your  voice,  as  the  voice  of  God  !"  What  other 
religion  claims  it,  I  ask  you?  Does  the  Protestant  religion 
claim  this  authority,  and  say:  Hear  me,  for  I  come  from 
God?  No;  the  boast  of  Protestantism  is  that  it  has  removed 
that  slavery  of  the  human  intellect  that  bound  man  to  hear  the 
voice  of  the  Church,  as  if  it  was  the  voice  of  God.  In  other 
words,  Protestantism  rests  upon  the  principle  that  says  to  every 
man :  You  are  the  best  judge  yourself.  Go ;  look  in  the 
Book.  Put  your  own  interpretation  on  it ;  your  private  judg- 
ment is  the  principle  of  faith.  Theirs  is  no  voice  that  can  say: 
Hear  me,  for  I  come  from  God  !  But  if  these  words  of  Scrip- 
ture be  true,  then,  my  friends,  nothing  remains  for  us  but  to 
take  the  Word  as  it  eomes  from  the  lips  of  the  Church  of  God  ; 
and  that  Word  is  our  faith.  The  Protestant  will  say:  Don't 
speak  so,  O  friar!  Don't  speak  so,  thou  bigot  of  the  thir- 
teenth century  !  We  have  long  forgotten  you,  and  your  white 
and  black  habit !  Go  back  to  your  cloister!  Go  back  to  rot 
and  fester  in  your  monastic  idleness,  and  in  your  monastic  garb 
of  poverty!  We  have  outgrown  you — we  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  We  get  our  faith  from  the  Bible — the  written  Word 
of  God !  But  I  ask  you,  before  you  accept  that  as  the  foun- 
tain of  your  faith,  does  not  that  very  Bible  tell  you  that  faith 
comes,  not  by  reading,  but  by  hearing;  and  that  hearing  comes 
by  the  Word  of  God  spoken  ;  and  that  the  man  that  speaks 
that  Word  must  be  sent  by  Almighty  God  ?  "  Faith  comes  by 
hearing,"  says  St.  Paul,  "  and  hearing  by  the  Word  of  God. 
How  shall  they  hear  without  a  preacher,  and  how  shall  they 
preach  unless  they  be  sent  ?  "  Therefore,  the  man  that  comes 
to  create  Faith  must  come  with  a  living  voice;  that  voice  must 
be  the  voice  of  authority ;  and  whilst  he  speaks  to  his  fellow- 
man,  he  must  be  able,  with  his  right  band,  to  point  to  a  com- 
mission received  from  God.  Where  is  that  commission  to  be 
found,  save  and  except  in  the  Catholic  Church,  that  goes  up, 
step  by  step,  and   year  by  year,  until  she  says  :  "  I  am  here, 


524  The  Catholic  Church  and 

speaking  to  you  to-night  by  the  voice  of  the  least  and  most  un 
worthy  of  my  commissioned  and  sent  children  ;  but  I  was  pres- 
ent, on  Easter  morning  with  Peter  and  John,  when  we  en- 
tered an  empty  grave,  and  we  heard  from  angels  the  words : 
'  Why  seek  you  the  living  with  the  dead  ?  He  is  risen.  He  is 
no  longer  here !'  "  This  is  the  Catholic  Church.  She  alone  can 
create  Faith.  She  alone  can  give  knowledge.  The  nations  are 
groping  about  like  children,  with  a  film  over  their  eyes.  They 
are  seeking  what  they  are  to  believe  ;  "  I  believe  this  ;  you  be- 
lieve that ;  you  are  wrong,  and  I  am  right."  "  No ;  but  I  am 
right,  and  you  are  wrong  !  "  And  in  the  midst  of  all  this  stands 
the  living  Church ;  the  voice  that  spoke  and  resounded  when  He 
struck  the  key-note— and  that  was  on  the  day  when  he  said : 
Go  and  preach  to  all  the  nations;  teach  them,  with  loving 
care,  all  that  I  have  spoken  to  you.  And  I  am  with  you  all 
days,  even  until  to  the  consummation  of  the  world ! 

Does  the  Catholic  Church  create  purity?  Well,  my  friends, 
this  is  a  subject  on  which  it  is  difficult  to  speak  to  a  mixed 
audience,  such  as  I  have  here  this  evening.  And  yet,  I  feel 
bound  to  speak  plainly  and  clearly  to  you.  The  Catholic  Church 
creates  purity.  In  what  does  purity  consist  ?  My  friends,  there 
are  two  natures  in  man.  There  is  the  nature  of  the  body — 
gross,  material,  corrupt,  base,  vile — of  the  slime  of  the  earth. 
And  there  is  the  nature  of  the  soul — spiritual,  God-like, 
heavenly — for  it  comes  from  heaven — from  the  lips  of  God, 
These  two  natures  meet  in  man,  not  as  friends,  but  as  enemies. 
They  do  not  join  hands  and  say :  Let  us  work  together  for  all 
the  eternal  purposes  of  Him  who  created  us.  But  the  spirit 
says  tc  the  flesh:  I  must  subdue  you!  And  the  flesh  saya 
to  the  spirit :  No  ;  but  I  will  drag  you  down  with  me  into 
hell !  Thus  it  is  that  the  two  natures,  the  spiritual  and  the 
corporal,  meet  in  man.  The  soul,  in  this  contest  with  the  body, 
has  divine  faith  —  light,  example,  and  grace.  The  body  has 
its  passions,  its  inclinations,  its  base  desires.  It  has  what  are 
called,  now-a-days,  in  the  blasphemous  jargon  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  "  the  necessities  of  its  nature  !  "  The  virtue  of  purity 
is  that  form  of  divine  grace  by  which  the  soul,  the  spiritual 
nature,  the  angelic  element  in  man  is  able  to  assert  itself,  to  rise 
into  all  the  glory  of  its  imperial  power,  and  to  say  to  that  body, 
base,  and  vile,  and  earthly  as  it  is,    No,  you   must  not  govern 


The   Wants  of  Society.  625 

me!  You  must  not  enslave  me!  You  must  not  have  a  single 
desire,  nor  gratify  a  single  wish,  except  what  I  consent  to! 
And  this  is  purity;  the  power  of  the  soul  over  the  body— the 
power  of  the  intelligence  and  of  the  will  over  the  depraved  pas- 
sions of  that  low,  debased,  and  fallen  nature  which  is  in  this 
flesh  of  ours.  The  more  perfect  that  purity  rises  into  the  com- 
plete empire  of  soul  over  body,  the  more  like  does  that  virtue 
make  a  man  unto  Jesus  Christ,  the  God  of  infinite  purity.  The 
more  perfectly  the  body  is  subdued,  the  more  perfectly  all  its 
passions  are  annihilated,  the  more  easily  and  imperiou 
temptations  are  swept  out  of  the  way,  so  that  the  soul  may  go 
on  in  its  course  to  God,  the  more  perfect  is  the  purity  of  that 
man.  And  that  highest  form  of  purity  is  called  "  virginal 
purity." 

Now,  my  friends,  in  the  designs  of  God,  in  creation,  every- 
thing takes  its  type  from  something  above  itself.  Everything 
looks  to  the  most  perfect  of  its  species.  The  Catholic  Church 
creates  purity  amongst  the  people  because  she  creates  a  perfect 
type  of  purity  in  her  priesthood  and  in  her  sanctuary.  The 
Catholic  Church  says  to  the  people:  Oh,  you  men — oh,  you 
husbands — be  faithful,  be  pure,  be  self-restrained  men  !  Look 
at  your  fellow-men  in  the  sanctuary !  Look  at  the  men  who 
minister  unto  me  at  my  altars!  Behold,  I  have  taken  them  in 
the  bloom  of  their  youth,  in  the  strength  of  their  manhood  ;  and 
I  have  enabled  them  so  to  annihilate  their  passions  and  their 
bodies,  that  no  thought,  or  shadow  of  a  thought  to  sin  allied,  is 
ever  allowed  to  linger  in  its  passage  across  their  imagination  : 
that  no  act  unworthy  an  angel  of  God  is  ever  committed  by 
them  :  that  they  are  in  the  flesh,  indeed,  but  exalting  the  spirit 
over  that  flesh;  and  therefore  it  is  that  I  admit  them  to  my 
most  holy  altar,  because  they  are  complete  victories,  and 
the  embodiments  of  victory,  over  their  passions.  In  the 
purity  of  her  priesthood,  in  the  virginal  purity  of  her  priest, 
and  monk,  and  nun,  the  Church  of  God  proves  to  the 
world  that  this  high  virtue  is  possible  ;  that  it  is  easy  and 
feasible  to  man  ;  and  that  all  that  any  man  has  to  do  is  to  look 
up  to  Jesus  Christ  in  prayer,  and  in  sacrifice,  and  in  humility, 
in  order  to  obtain  that  gift  of  innocence  and  purity  which  is  the 
adornment  of  the  Christian  soul. 

Still  more,  the  Church  of  God,  the  Catholic  Church,  in  her 
40 


o2o  The  Catholic  Church  and 

system  of  education,  ensures  the  virtue  of  purity  in  the  young. 
She  takes  the  little  boy  or  the  little  girl,  with  the  dews  of  their 
baptismal  innocence  upon  them,  before  their  minds  are  open  to 
the  comprehension,  or  their  passions  excited  to  the  enjoyment 
of  anything  evil.  She  places  them  under  the  care  of  her  precep- 
tors— her  Christian  Brothers,  her  monks,  her  nuns;  she  sur- 
rounds them  with  every  influence  that  breathes  only  of  God, 
and  of  the  Virgin,  and  of  the  Virgin's  Son,  and  of  the  highest 
purity.  She  teaches  them,  from  their  earliest  infancy,  to 
look  to  our  Divine  Lord,  and  to  his  Virgin  Mother,  and  to 
behold  in  both  of  them,  shining  forth,  the  gift  of  the  infinite 
purity  of  God ;  and  she  teaches  them  that  this  is  the  highest 
form  of  virtue.  She  infuses  into  the  young  soul  her  sacra- 
mental graces.  She  brings  the  child — with  the  dews  of  his  bap- 
tismal innocence  upon  him — face  to  face  with  the  Lord  God  in 
the  Holy  Communion ;  and  upon  those  innocent  lips,  that  never 
murmured  a  word  of  evil,  and  in  that  innocent  heart  that  has 
never  thought  a  thought  unholy,  does  she  place  her  Divine 
Lord  in  all  the  strength,  in  all  the  majesty  of  His  holiness,  to 
communicate  Himself  to  the  little  one — to  make  that  little  one 
even  as  He  was  in  the  happy  days  when,  in  Nazareth,  He  grew 
up  under  Mary's  hands. 

More,  she  ensures  domestic  holiness,  upon  the  foundation  of 
domestic  purity.  She  tells  the  husband  and  the  wife  that  they 
are  bound  together  by  a  bond,  upon  which  the  Church  of  God 
has  set  her  sacramental  seal,  and  that  no  authority  on  earth,  no 
power  in  this  world,  no  circumstance  that  may  arise,  can  ever 
destroy  that  bond,  or  separate  that  husband  from  the  wife.  She 
tells  that  man,  that,  no  matter  what  trust  he  may  break,  no 
matter  what  obligation  he  may  be  unfaithful  to,  there  is  one  to 
which  he  must  remain  faithful  to  the  last  hour  of  his  life;  and 
that  is  the  obligation  of  pure  love,  and  of  undivided  homage  to 
the  wife  of  his  bosom.  No  matter  what  circumstances  may 
come  ;  no  matter  how  fortune  may  smile  or  frown  ;  for  better 
or  worse,  for  richer  or  poorer,  in  sickness  or  in  health,  till  death 
do  them  part ;  and  whoever  comes  in,  no  matter  what  he  says, 
no  matter  what  he  is,  no  matter  how  powerful  a  king,  no  matter 
haw  great  the  legislature  that  comes  in  and  pretends  to  sever 
and  destroy  this  sacred  bond,  to  such  a  one  the  Church  of  God 
says :  Destroy  me  if  you  can,  shed  my  blood  if  you  will,  but 


The    Wants  of  Society.  r.27 

I  =ta..d  between  you  and  that  woman;  with  .ill  the  pov.ee  of 

God,  and  with  a  blessing  and  with  a  curse,  I  stand  bctw.  | 

and  that  woman  ;  and  I  tell  you  your  word  is  null  and  void  ; 
she  shall  never  be  parted  from  her  husband  ;  she  shall  never  lose 
his  love,  nor  his  devotion,  nor  his  homage,  till  death  comes  to 
part  them!  Thus  the  woman  is  secured  in  her  position.  My 
friends,  don't  be  angry  with  me  if  I  say  it  ;  consider  if  it  be 
true  ;  if  it  be  not  true,  take  it  as  if  it  were  not  said  ;  but,  if 
it  be  true,  consider  it  well.  Consider  it  well,  Oh,  you  ladies, 
who  are  present,  who  may  not  be  Catholics ;  the  only  lady, 
the  only  wife  that  is  perfectly  secure,  that  can  rest  quietly 
without  a  thought,  or  a  fear,  or  an  anticipation  of  ever  being 
disturbed  from  her  sacred  position  of  wife  and  of  mother,  is 
the  woman  over  whose  marriage  the  Catholic  Church  fa 
her  sacramental  hand  and  seal.  She  is  the  only  queen  that 
can  never  be  dethroned ;  the  only  empress  from  whose  brow 
no  hand  can  pluck  the  honorable  and  magnificent  crown  of 
the  pure  Christian  wife  and  Christian  mother.  And,  therefore, 
I  hold  that  the  Catholic  Church,  in  her  system  of  education; 
in  the  example  of  her  priesthood  and  her  consecrated  ones ;  in 
her  teaching  ;  in  her  securing  the  matrimonial  bond  as  most 
inviolable,  has  secured  unto  the  world,  in  addition  to  the  gift  of 
faith,  the  magnificent  gift  of  chastity. 

But  what  about  the  public  and  private  honesty?  What  is  she 
able  to  do  here?  you  will  ask.  Well,  my  friends,  there  are  two 
ways  of  dealing  with  a  man  in  this  respect.  The  first  is,  to  try 
and  save  a  man  from  being  a  thief,  if  you  can  ;  and  if  you  don't 
succeed  in  making  him  honest,  get  hold  of  him  as  soon  as  you 
can  afterwards  and  take  whatever  he  foully  got  from  him.  If 
you  can  save  him  from  being  a  thief,  so  much  the  better.  But 
the  next  best  thing  is  to  catch  the  thief  and  open  his  pockets, 
take  out  of  them  whatever  was  stolen,  and  give  it  back  to  the 
decent  man  that  it  belonged  to.  "Here,  sir,  this  is  yours, 
There  it  is.  This  property  is  yours.  It  was  taken  out  of 
your  house  yesterday.  I  have  the  thief!  "  Now,  there  is  no 
power  that  can  do  this  except  the  Catholic  Church.  First 
of  all,  there  is  no  power  that  can  save  a  man  from  com- 
mitting a  theft  except  the  power  that  musters  his  conscience, 
that  lays  hold  of  his  conscience.  Now,  mark.  You  may  i'i 
against  God.     You  may  do  a  great  many  bad  things.     If  yoa 


628  The  Catholic  Church  and 

are  penitent  and  sorry,  you  get  absolution.  There  is  an  end 
of  it.  God  Almighty  forgives  you  freely  whatever  you  do 
against  Him.  But,  remember;  if  your  sin  be  against  your 
neighbor ;  if  you  be  guilty  of  the  slightest  act  of  thievery  or 
injustice  against  your  neighbor — Almighty  God  will  not  forgive 
you  until  you  have  given  back  what  you  have  stolen — Almighty 
God  will  not  forgive  you  unless  you  make  restitution.  If  I,  for 
instance,  offend  God  ;  and,  in  the  silence  of  my  chamber,  I  beseech 
God  to  pardon  me,  and  I  am  afterwards  sorry  and  kneel  down  at 
my  confessor's  knee  ;  make  a  confession  ;  tell  my  sin  ;  express  my 
sorrow  ;  make  my  resolution  that,  with  God's  help,  I  will  never 
do  the  like  again,  the  priest  will  say:  "You  have  committed  a 
terrible  sin ;  you  have  blasphemed  God  in  your  anger ;  you  have 
blasphemed  the  attributes  of  God  ;  you  have  invoked  the  devil 
to  help  you  in  your  anger  or  despair ; — but  you  are  sorry.  Now, 
with  three  words,"  he  says,  "  I  absolve  thee  in  the  name  of  the 
Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost."  It  was  a  sin  against  God  only,  of 
which  you  were  guilty.  Whatever  we  are  sorry  for,  God  forgives 
us  freely.  But  whenever  an  offence  against  God  involves  also 
an  offence  against  our  neighbor,  it  becomes  quite  a  different 
thing,  my  friends.  If,  in  the  same  manner,  I  go  to  confession 
and  say  to  the  priest :  "  Father,  I  was  very  angry  with  a  man, 
and  I  wanted  to  have  revenge  on  him ;  and  I  went  to  his 
employers -and  told  them  the  man  was  a  dishonest  man;  and 
they  discharged  him ;  and  he  has  been  out  of  work  now  for 
three  weeks;"  the  confessor  will  say:  "Was  it  true  or  false 
what  you  told  them?"  "Father,  it  was  a  lie."  "And  he  is 
three  weeks  out  of  work  now?  "  "Yes."  "  How  much  was  he 
earning  a  week?"  "Ten  dollars  a  week."  "My  man,"  the 
confessor  will  say,  "  you  will  have  to  give  that  man  thirty 
dollars  ;  and  you  will  have  to  go  to  his  employers  and  tell 
them  that  you  are  a  liar ;  that  you  have  slandered  that  man 
unjustly."  The  man  will  say,  perhaps:  "  I  cannot  very  well  do 
it ;  I  have  only  twenty  dollars  altogether."  The  priest  will 
say;  "  I  must  still,  my  son,  warn  you  that  you  are  bound  to 
restitution."  "  But,  Father,  you  cannot  ask  me  to  go  and 
make  a  liar  of  myself?  "  "  'Tis  no  use,  my  son,"  the  priest 
will  answer ;  "  for,  as  you  told  a  lie  on  the  man  before,  you 
must  go  and  tell  the  truth  now.  It  is  not  now  you  will  make 
yourself  a  liar,  when  you  go  to  have  him  reinstated.     You  made 


The    Wants  of  Society.  629 

yourself  a  liar  when  you  got  the  man  turned  out ;  but  until  you 
get  that  man  reinstated — until  you  get  him  back  in  his  place— 
until  you  make  up  his  character— until  yon  make  up  his  loss, 
you  cannot  be  absolved  here!  It's  no  use  !  You  cannot 
your  Easter  duty:  I  cannot  let  you!"  If,  now,  in  addition 
to  this,  this  man  says  that  after  getting  his  neighbor  out  of 
employment  by  saying  he  was  a  thief,  he  met  three  or  four 
others  and  told  it  to  them  ;  and  they  spread  the  story  about  the 
neighborhood,  then  the  priest  will  say:  "  Well,  my  son,  when 
you  have  paid  the  thirty  dollars,  and  got  the  man  back  in  his 
situation,  there  is  yet  another  thing  you  must  do.  You  mast 
go  about  again  among  the  neighbors,  and  tell  them  that  what 
you  said  was  all  a  lie  !  "  Why?  Because  you  have  robbed  that 
man  of  his  reputation.  This  is  Catholic  duty,  as  enforced  in  the 
confessional !  What  is  there  more  likely  to  keep  a  man  honest 
than  the  perfect  knowledge  that  he  cannot  be  a  thief?  If  a  man 
could  say,  "  I  will  rob  my  employer  of  a  thousand  dollars,  taking 
twenty  at  a  time,  and  he  will  not  miss  it ;  afterwards  I  will  lead 
a  good  life  ;  I  will  do  penance  before  God  ;  I  will  become  an 
elder  in  the  Church  ;  and  I  will  preach  on  Sundays,  sometimes, 
myself.  Besides,  nobody  will  miss  it,  and  nobody  will  be  the 
worse  for  it — if  a  man  could  say  that,  what  a  strong  temp- 
tation would  it  not  be  to  take  it?  But  the  Catholic  cannot  do 
it.  I  remember,  since  I  came  to  America,  hearing  of  a  man 
who  came  to  a  Catholic,  somewhere  down  South,  and  made 
this  proposal  :  "  You  will  vote  for  me,  and  I  will  vote  for 
you  ;  we  can  thus  make  twelve  hundred  dollars  and  divide 
them  between  us."  "  Well,"  said  the  other,  "  I  cannot  do 
that,  but  I'll  tell  you  what  I  will  do.  If  you  give  me  a 
thousand  I  will  let  you  have  the  two  hundred.  For  I  can 
tell  you,"  said  he,  "  that  sooner  or  later  I  must  make  restitu- 
tion, because  I  am  a  Catholic;  but  you  will  have  the  two 
hundred,  scot-free.  You  have  no  restitution  to  make  !  "  Who 
is  it  that  catches  the  thief?  Why,  for  one  thief  the  State  lays 
hold  of,  a  thousand  thieves  escape.  For  every  one  man  that  the 
State  lays  hold  of  and  bring*s  to  trial  for  robbery  or  corruption, 
how  many  are  never  detected,  or,  if  detected,  elude  justice  ? 
The  money  is  all  gone,  and  all  the  courts  can  do  is  t>>  Bend  the 
offender  to  the  penitentiary,  or  put  him  on  the  tread-mill.  But 
that  will  not  get  back  one  penny  of  the  money.     The  Catholic 


630  The  Catholic  Church  and 

Church  alone  lays  hold  of  the  thief;  she  c.xtches  him  in  the 
Confessional.  "  How  much  did  you  take  ?  "  "  Twenty  thou- 
sand."  "  Then  you  have  to  give  back  every  penny  of  it."  The 
Catholic  Church  alone  so  lays  hold  of  the  thief  that  it  enables 
those  who  were  plundered  to  get  their  own  again.  Perhaps 
you  say  this  is  never  done  ?  I  deny  it.  I  say  it  is  within  my  own 
knowledge,  as  indeed  of  every  priest  actively  engaged  on  the 
mission,  that  sums  amounting  in  the  aggregate  to  something 
enormous  are  constantly  being  restored  through  the  Confes- 
sional. Who  catches  the  thief?  Why,  this  is  well  known  in 
England ;  and,  I  believe,  in  this  country.  A  great  many  Prot- 
estant families  have  Catholic  servants,  because  they  know  they 
cannot  steal  from  them.  I  once  met  when  on  the  English 
mission  a  Protestant  clergyman,  who  assured  me  that  he  made 
it  a  point  to  employ  Catholic  servants,  and  always  insisted  on 
their  going  to  the  sacraments.  When  I  observed  to  him  that 
he  spoke  like  one  who  believed  in  the  efficacy  of  the  sacra- 
ments, he  replied:  "  I  cannot  say  that  I  believe  in  their  effi- 
cacy, but  I  know  that  so  long  as  my  people  go  to  Confes- 
sion and  Communion,  my  property  and  my  children  are  safe 
in  their  hands."  This  is  the  Catholic  Church  ;  the  reality  of 
religion.  I  cannot  help  feeling  indignant,  from  the  very  love 
I  have  for  my  fellow-men,  for  the  very  love  I  have  for  this  glori- 
ous land,  where  I  would  very  willingly  spend  the  rest  of  my 
life,  if  I  were  only  allowed — I  cannot  help  feeling  indignant 
whenever  I  see  an  unreal  thing,  a  sham,  held  up  and  called  by 
the  name  of  "  religion."  Why,  religion,  wherever  it  is,  if  it  be 
true,  must  get  into  a  man's  soul,  must  make  him  a  pure  man, 
must  make  him  an  honest  man.  It  must  make  him  an  hum- 
ble man,  believing  in  God  with  all  his  heart  and  soul — leaning 
upon  Christ,  his  Saviour,  with  all  his  heart  and  soul — not 
clinging  to  any  other  name,  or  any  other  power,  save  that  of 
Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  his  Saviour.  But,  in  clinging  to 
Him  by  faith,  he  must  also  approach  Him  with  pure  hands. 
We  hear  men  speaking  of  "hanging  on  to  the  Lord;"  of 
"grasping  the  Lord;"  of  "laying  hold  of  the  Saviour;"  but 
if  their  hands  are  not  pure  !  Would  the  Virgin's  Son  allow 
the  impure  man  to  approach  Him  !  No  ;  that  man  is  the  worst 
blasphemer  who  would  speak  of  Christ  with  impure  lips,  or 
speak  of  touching  Him,  unless  his  hands  are  pure.     Religion, 


The  Wants  of  Society.  631 

wherever  it  is,  must  enter  into  man's  life  in  his  relations  with 
his  fellow-man,  must  create  in  him  a  sense,  a  constant,  abiding 
sense,  of  his  responsibility  to  God  and  to  his  fellow-man.     Con- 
sequently, it  must  make  him  "as  honest  as  the  sun,"  as 
in  Ireland.     And  if  it  do  not  do  this,  it  is  no  religion. 

Now,  my  Catholic  friends,  one  word,  and  I  have  done,  f<jr  I 
greatly  fear  I  have  trespassed  on  your  patience.  The  citizens 
of  America  may  well  say  to  me,  and  to  the  like  of  me,  "  This  is 
all  very  beautiful  in  theory;  but,  is  it  so  in  practice,  amongst 
your  people  ?  Are  your  people,  are  you,  that  are  always  boast- 
ing about  being  an  Irishman,  throwing  up  your  hands  about 
Ireland,  talking  about  Irish  glory,  and  all  that,  are  your  fellow- 
countrymen,  in  this  country,  the  pure,  honest  men  that  you 
speak  of?"  I  answer,  if  they  are  true  Catholics,  they  are  all  that 
I  describe  them  to  be.  I  am  not  describing  bad  Catholics.  But 
I  say  to  every  man  that  speaks  to  me,  either  as  an  Irishman,  <>r 
as  a  priest,  I  say:  If,  as  Irishmen,  they  are  true  to  their 
country's  traditions,  they  are  all  that  I  describe  them  to  be. 
And,  as  a  Catholic  priest,  I  say,  if  they  are  true  to  their  religion. 
they  are  all,  my  friends,  that  I  describe  them  to  be.  What  re- 
mains ?  What  remains,  men  of  Ireland — men  of  the  Catholic 
Church  ?  What  remains,  but  for  you  and  me  to  be  what  we 
ought  to  be  ?  For  you  and  me  to  be  what  our  forefathers  before 
us  were,  the  cream  of  the  earth  !  The  light  of  the  world  was 
ancient  Ireland  !  The  joy  of  Christendom  was  ancient  Ireland. 
The  glory  of  the  Catholic  Church  was  ancient  Ireland.  What 
remains,  but  for  us  to  be  what  our  fathers  before  us  were,  so 
faithfully,  in  the  days  of  joy  or  of  sorrow  ?  What  remains  for 
me  to  be,  but  all  that  the  Catholic  Church  tells  me  I  ought  to 
be,  and  all  that  Ireland's  history  tells  me  the  monks  and  priests 
of  Ireland's  history  were?  What  remains  for  me  but,  as  a 
Catholic,  the  laws  of  my  Church,  and,  as  an  Irishman,  the  grand 
example  of  St.  Columbanus,  St.  Patrick,  and  St.  Kevin  !  And 
if  you,  and  I,  and  all  the  Irish  Catholics  in  this  land,  are  only 
what  our  religion  commands  us  to  be,  or  supposes  us  to  be,  and, 
I  will  add — and  this  is  the  great  point — enables  us  to  be,  if  we 
only  accept  her  ministration  and  her  sacraments — if  we  are  only 
that,  then  shall  we  be  worthy  of  the  esteem  and  lovfi  of  our 
American  fellow-citizens.  Why  do  I  speak  of  them?  Because, 
Irishmen   and   Catholics,    whom  I   am    addressing,  let    me   tell 


632  The  Catholic  Church  and 

you,  that  I  have  lived  in  many  lands,  and  I  have  known 
many  people,  and  I  am  not  accustomed  (thanks  be  to 
God,  and  I  hope  I  never  will  be)  to  speak  words  of  flattery 
or  idle  speech  to  any  people.  I  speak  the  truth  as  I  fee' 
it.  I  speak  it.  as  it  fits  in  my  mind  before  the  world. 
I  s-ay  to  you,  as  I  am  upon  this  topic,  as  far  as  my 
experience  leads  me,  if  there  is  a  man  upon  this  earth  whose 
love  and  whose  good  will  I  have  the  ambition  to  possess  he  is 
the  American  citizen.  If  you  and  I  are  what  our  religion  and 
what  our  history  tells  us  we  ought  to  be,  America  will  have  no 
loss,  but  a  great  gain  in  us.  America,  the  grand  and  glorious 
young  country  that  has  never  yet  violated  the  traditions  of  her 
own  freedom ;  that  has  never  yet  denied  to  the  poor  emigrant, 
and  to  the  stranger,  and  to  the  hunted  head,  the  liberty,  and 
the  share  in  that  liberty  which  she  herself  enjoyed.  To  be  a 
citizen  of  America ;  to  be  destined,  either  in  yourselves  or  in 
your  children  after  you,  to  guide  her  councils,  and  enter  into 
the  halls  of  her  glorious  Legislature ;  to  be  citizens  of  Amer- 
ica— that  is  to  say,  in  a  few  years  to  shape  the  destinies  of  the 
world,  and  give  laws  to  all  the  nations — laws  founded  on  justice, 
on  religion,  and  on  God — this,  I  hold,  is  the  highest  ambition 
that  can  enter  into  the  mind  of  man  in  this  nineteenth  century. 
The  country  that  has  given  you  a  home,  will  give  you  power 
and  influence.  The  nation  that  has  opened  her  arms  to  re- 
ceive you,  will  lift  you  up  in  those  strong  arms  to  the  full  height 
and  the  highest  place ;  for  no  mean,  miserable,  petty  bigotry, 
no  miserable  restriction  of  race  or  religion  fetters  the  mind  of 
the  free  man  here.  This,  and  all  this,  will  this  glorious  Amer- 
ica do  for  us,  if  we,  Catholics  and  Irishmen,  and  the  sons  of 
Irishmen,  are  all  that  Catholicity  teaches  us  to  be,  and  all  that 
our  history  points  out  to  us  in  the  traditions  of  our  glorious 
past.  Great  will  be  America's  gain  in  the  day  when  the  Irish 
element  in  America,  taking  shape  and  form,  brings  to  bear  upon 
her  councils  the  magnificent  intellect  of  Ireland,  brings  into 
her  battle-fields  the  strong,  brave,  and  stalwart  arms  that  were 
never  yet  idle  when  a  blow  was  to  be  struck  for  freedom. 
Great  will  be  America's  gain,  all  this  secured  to  her  by  Irish 
fidelity  and  Irish  love  for  the  land  of  their  adoption.  Great 
will  be  America's  gain  when  her  sanctuaries  and  shrines  con- 
tinue to  be  adorned — as  they  are  adorned  to-day — by  that  Irish 


Tin    Wants  of  Socnty.  633 

priesthood  that  has  come  to  this  land  with  the  traditions  cf 
fifteen  hundred  years  of  martyrdom  and  of  sanctity  about  it. 
Great,  indeed,  will  be  this  nation's  future  history.  I  see  her  as 
she  rises  before  me,  magnificent  in  every  proportion  of  intellec- 
tual and  material  strength  ;  I  see  her  combining  the  best  re- 
sources of  every  land  and  of  every  country.  In  her  right 
arm,  outstretched  in  the  moment  of  her  highest  power,  1 
see  the  energy,  the  might,  the  patriotism,  and  the  fidelity  of 
Ireland.  You  remain,  but  I  will  leave  you  ;  and,  if  God  gives 
me  life,  I  will  yet,  perhaps,  with  tears  of  joy  in  my  eyes,  see  the 
green  hills  of  Innisfail  rise  before  me.  Oh,  my  friends,  let  me 
bring  home  with  me  the  message  to  the  sons  of  Ireland,  to  the 
Clan-na-gael — from  those  who  love  the  old  land  to  those  who 
love  you  there — let  me  bring  home  the  consoling  message  to 
them,  that  Ireland  in  America  is  worthy  of  its  new  land  ;  but 
that  Ireland  in  America  has  not  forgotten  the  old  land  ;  that 
the  heart  of  Ireland  beats  throbbing  in  all  the  energy  of  youth 
for  the  glorious  future  that  is  before  it  in  America;  but  still 
looks  back  and  beholds  in  the  light  of  memory,  across  the 
waves,  the  ever  loved  and  ever  dear  green  land  of  the  saints 
and  of  our  sires.  Then,  my  friends,  the  ancient  land,  my  home, 
will  look  with  hopeful  eyes  across  the  wide  Atlantic  to  the  great 
continent  that  is  here  ;  and  whenever  an  enemy  assails  her, 
whenever  an  old  tyrant  comes  to  hang  an  old  chain  upon  her, 
Ireland  will  rise  up,  indignant  in  her  strength,  and  say:  "Oh, 
tyrant!  Oh,  oppressor!  remember  I  have  strong  sons  over  the 
ocean  who  will  strike  a  blow  for  me !  I  am  not  abandoned.  I 
am  not  all-forsaken,  though  in  my  old  age.  I  am  the  mother 
of  the  strong  race,  the  intellectual  race,  the  powerful  race,  that, 
some  day  or  other,  will  bring  the  mighty  energies  of  the  '  Great 
Country'  to  bear  upon,  to  crush — aye,  and  to  trample  into  the 
dust  the  foul  hand  that  was  ever  raised  to  strike* dear  o'd  Ire- 
land!" 


THE   DIVINE  COMMISSION  OF 
THE  CHURCH. 


[Preached  in  the  Church  of  St.  Vincent  Ferrer,  New  York,  on  Sunday   morning, 
June    16th,    1872.] 

At  that  time :  It  came  to  pass,  that  when  the  multitude  pressed  upon  him,  to  hear 
the  word  of  God,  he  stood  by  the  lake  of  Genesareth.  And  he  saw  two  ships  standing 
by  the  lake  ;  but  the  fishermen  were  gone  out  of  them,  and  were  washing  their  nets. 
And  going  up  into  one  of  the  ships  that  was  Simon's,  he  desired  him  to  draw  back  a 
little  from  the  land.  And  sitting,  he  taught  the  multitude  out  of  the  ship.  Now, 
when  he  had  ceased  to  speak,  he  said  to  Simon :  Launch  out  into  the  deep,  and  let 
down  your  nets  for  a  draught.  And  Simon  answering,  said  to  him  :  Master,  we  have 
labored  all  the  night,  and  have  taken  nothing  ;  but  at  thy  word  I  will  let  down  the 
net.  And  when  they  had  done  this,  they  enclosed  a  very  great  multitude  of  fishes, 
and  their  net  broke.  And  they  beckoned  to  their  partners  that  were  in  the  other 
ship,  that  they  should  come  and  help  them.  And  they  came  and  filled  both  the  ships 
so  that  they  were  almost  sinking.  Which  when  Simon  Peter  saw,  he  fell  down  at 
Jesus'  knee,  saying  :  Depart  from  me,  for  I  am  a  sinful  man,  O  Lord.  For  he  was 
wholly  astonished,  and  all  that  were  with  him,  at  the  draught  of  the  fishes  that  were 
taken.  And  so  were  also  James  and  John,  the  sons  of  Zebedee,  who  were  Simon's 
partners.  And  Jesus  saith  to  Simon :  Fear  not ;  from  henceforth  thou  shalt  catch 
men.     And  having  brought  their  ships  to  land,  leaving  all  things,  they  followed  Him. 

jHEN  we  read  the  positive  doctrines  laid  down  in  the 
Gospel,  we  are  bound  to  open  our  minds  to  the  utter- 
ances of  the  Almighty  God.  We  are  also  bound  to 
meditate  upon  even  what  appear  to  be  the  most 
trifling  incidents  recorded  in  the  actions  and  sayings  of  Jesus 
Christ.  Every  word  that  is  recorded  of  Him  has  a  deep  and 
salutary  meaning.  There  is  not  one  word  in  the  Gospel,  nor 
one  incident,  that  is  not  full  of  instruction  for  us ;  and  the 
evidence  that  this  Gospel  gives  of  the  divinity  of  the  Christian 
religion,  and  of  the  divine  origin  of  the  Church,  lies  not  only  in 
the  broad  assertion — such,  for  instance,  as  where  Christ  says : 
"  I  will  build  My  Church  upon  a  rock ;  and  the  gates  of  hell 


The  Divine  Commission  of  the  Church.  635 

«hall  not  prevail  against  it;"  or,  elsewhere:  "  He  that  will  not 
hear  the  Church  let  him  be  to  thee  as  a  heathen  and  a  pub- 
lican;" but  these  evidences  lie  also  :n  the  minor  incidents  which 
are  so  carefully  and  minutely  recorded  from  time  to  time  by  the 

Evangelists. 

Now,  I  ask  you  to  consider  in  this  spirit  the  Gospel  which 
I  have  just  read  to  you.  St.  Peter — who  was  afterwards  the 
Pope  of  Rome — began  life  as  a  fisherman,  on  the  shores  of  the 
Sea  of  Galilee.  He  had  his  boats,  he  had  his  nets  ;  he  swept 
those  waters,  pursuing  his  humble  trade  in  company  with  James 
and  John,  the  sons  of  Zebcdee,  and  with  Andrew,  his  own  elder 
brother.  These  men  had  passed  the  night  upon  the  bosom  of 
the  waters,  toiling  and  laboring,  but  they  had  taken  nothing. 
Sad  and  dispirited  for  so  much  time  and  labor  lost,  they  landed 
from  their  boats  in  the  morning  :  and  they  took  out  their  nets  to 
wash  them.  Whilst  they  were  thus  engaged,  a  great  multitude 
appeared  in  sight — men  who  followed  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
and  pressed  around  Him,  that  they  might  hear  the  words  of 
divine  truth  from  His  lips.  He  came  to  the  shores  of  the  lake, 
and  he  entered  into  one  of  the  boats ;  and  the  Evangelist  takes 
good  care  to  tell  us  that  the  boat  into  which  the  Saviour  stepped 
was  Simon  Peter's  boat.  He  then  commanded  Peter  to  push 
out  a  little  from  the  land,  that  he  might  have  a  little  water  be- 
tween Him  and  the  people,  and  yet  not  remove  Himself  so  far 
from  them  but  that  they  might  hear  his  voice.  There — whilst 
the  people  stood  reverently  listening  to  the  law  of  the  divine 
Redeemer — sat  the  Saviour,  in  Peter's  boat,  instructing  the 
multitude.  After  He  had  enlightened  their  minds  with  the  treas- 
ures of  the  divine  wisdom  which  flowed  from  Him,  he  turned  to 
Peter  and  said  to  him :  "  Launch  out  into  the  deep,  and  let 
down  your  nets  for  a  draught."  Peter,  answering,  said : 
"  Master,  we  have  labored  all  night  ;  and  we  have  taken 
nothing.  However,  he  replied,  in  Thy  word  I  trust ;  and  at 
Thy  command  I  will  let  down  the  net.  No  sooner  does 
he  cast  that  net  into  the  sea,  under  the  eyes,  and  at  the 
command  of  Jesus  Christ,  than  it  is  instantly  filled  with 
fishes,  and  Peter's  boat  is  filled  until  it  is  almost  sinking. 
This  is  the  fact  recorded.  What  docs  it  mean?  What  is 
the  meaning  of  this  passage  in  the  Gospel?  Has  it  any 
meaning   at   all?     Was  it  prophetic    of  things   that    were    to 


636  The  Divine  Commission  of  the  Church. 

be  ?  Oh,  my  brethren,  how  significant  and  how  prophetic,  in 
the  history  of  this  Christian  religion,  and  in  the  Church,  was  the 
action  of  Jesus  Christ  as  recorded  in  this  day's  gospel.  He  sat  in 
Peter's  boat ;  and  from  that  boat  He  taught  the  people.  What 
does  this  mean  ?  What  is  this  bark  of  Peter?  Need  I  tell  you, 
my  Catholic  friends  and  beloved  brethren,  what  this  bark  of 
Peter  meant?  Christ  our  Lord  built  unto  Himself  His  Church! 
He  made  her  so  that  she  was  never  to  be  shipwrecked  upon  the 
stormy  waves  of  this  world  ;  He  built  her  so  that  He  Himself 
shall  be  always  present  in  her,  although  Peter  sat  at  the  helm. 
He  built  her  so  that  it  was  her  fate  to  be  launched  out  upon  the 
ever-changing,  ever-agitated  and  stormy  sea  of  this  world  and 
its  society.  He  declared  that  Peter  should  be  at  the  head  of 
this  ship,  when  He  said  to  Him  :  "  Feed  thou  my  lambs  ;  feed 
thou  my  sheep :"  "Confirm  thou  thy  brethren :"  "  I  will  make 
you  to  be  fishers  of  men  :"  "  Launch  out  into  the  deep,  and  let 
down  your  nets  for  a  draught." 

St.  Peter  himself,  inspired  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  in  after  times, 
taught  that  the  Church  of  God  was  like  a  goodly  ship,  built  by 
Jesus  Christ,  in  which  were  to  be  saved  all  those  that  are  to  be 
saved  unto  the  end  of  time ;  for  he  compares  this  ship  to  the 
ark  of  Noah,  in  which  all  who  were  saved  in  the  great  deluge, 
found  their  refuge  ;  for  he  says  all  were  destroyed  and  perished, 
save  and  except  the  eight  souls  who  received  shelter  in  the  ark 
of  Noah  ;  and  the  rest  were  tossed  upon  the  stormy,  tumultu- 
ous billows  of  the  deluge ;  thrown  upon  the  tide  ;  and  as  the 
waters  rose  up  around  them  in  mighty  volume,  the  strong  man 
went  down  into  the  vasty  deep ;  the  infant  sent  forth  a  cry,  and 
presently  its  cry  was  stifled  in  the  surging  waves.  All  was 
desolation  ;  all  was  destruction,  save  and  except  the  ark,  which 
rode  triumphant  over  the  waters,  passing  over  the  summits  of 
the  mountains,  braving  the  storms  of  heaven  above  and  the 
angry  waves  beneath,  until  it  landed  its  living  freight  of  eight 
human  souls  in  safety  and  in  joy.  So,  also,  Christ,  our  Lord, 
built  unto  him  a  ship — His  Church  ;  he  launched  this  Church 
forth  upon  the  stormy  waves  of  the  world,  and  it  is  a  matter  of 
surprise  that  this  ocean  of  human  society  has  not  welcome  for 
the  Church  of  God.  Men  say,  "Is  Christianity  a  failure?"' 
Why  are  so  few  saved  ?  Why  are  so  few  found  to  comply  with 
the  conditions  which  the  Holy  Church  commands  ?     Why,  if 


The  Divint    Conmission  of  the  Church.  637 

she  received  the  commission  to  command  the  whole  world,  and 
to  convert  them,  why  is  it  that  this  Church  of  God  seems  to 
have  always  been  persecuted  and  abused?  Oh!  my  friends, 
there  is  a  deep  and  profound  analogy  between  the  things  of 
nature  and  the  things  of  grace.  The  goodly  ship  is  built  upon 
the  stocks  ;  she  is  strongly  built,  of  the  very  best  material  ;  she 
is  sheathed  and  plated  with  everything  that  can  keep  her  from 
the  action  of  the  seas;  she  is  built  so  that,  in  every  line,  lie- 
shall  cleave  through  the  waters  and  override  them  ;  and,  when 
she  is  all  prepared,  she  is  launched  out  into  the  deep  ;  and  her 
mission  is  to  spread  her  sails,  and  navigate  every  sea  to  the 
furthermost  end  of  the  world.  Through  all  of  them  must  she 
go  ;  over  them  all  must  she  ride  ;  a  thousand  storms  must  she 
brave  ;  and  that  ocean  that  receives  her  in  its  bosom,  apparently 
receives  her  only  for  the  purpose  of  tossing  her  from  wave  to 
wave,  of  trying  her  strength,  of  trying  every  timber  and  every 
joint,  opening  its  mighty  chasms  to  swallow  her  up,  and,  failing 
in  that,  dashing  its  angry  waves  against  her,  as  if,  in  the  order  of 
nature,  the  ship  and  the  sea  were  enemies,  and  that  the  ocean 
that  received  that  vessel  was  bent  only  upon  her  destruction.  Is 
it  not  thus  in  the  order  of  nature?  Is  it  not  this  very  stormy 
ocean,  these  mighty,  foam-crested  billows,  these  angry,  roaring 
waves,  the  thunder  that  rolls,  and  the  lightnings  which  flash 
around  her — is  it  not  all  these  that  try  and  prove  the  goodness 
of  the  ship ;  and  if  she  outlive  them — if  she  is  assuredly  able  to 
override  them  all  and  to  land  her  freight  and  her  passengers  in 
the  appointed  port — is  it  not  a  proof  that  she  is  well  built  ?  If 
the  ocean  were  as  smooth  as  glass  ;  if  the  winds  were  always 
favorable  ;  if  no  impediment  came  upon  her  :  if  no  waves  struck 
her  and  tried  to  roll  her  back,  or  no  chasm  opened  to  receive 
her  into  its  mighty  watery  bosom  ;  what  proof  would  we  have 
that  the  ship  was  the  making  of  the  master-hand,  under  the 
care  of  master-minds?  And  so  Christ,  our  Lord,  built  the  ship 
of  His  Church,  and  launched  her  out  upon  the  world  ;  and  from 
the  very  nature  of  the  case  it  was  necessary  that,  from  the  very 
first  day  that  she  set  forth,  until  the  last  day,  when  she  lands 
her  freight  of  souls  in  the  harbor  of  heaven,  she  should  meet, 
upon  the  ocean  of  this  world  of  human  society,  the  stormy 
waves  of  angry  contradiction  on  every  side.  This  was  her 
destiny,  and  this,  unfortunately,  is  the  destiny  that  the  u-orld 
takes  good  care  to  carry  out. 


638  The  Divine  Commission  of  the  Church. 

Men  say,  Christianity  is  a  failure,  because  this  Church  has  not 
bet.n  enabled  to  calm  every  sea,  and  ride  triumphant,  without 
let  or  hindrance,  upon  every  ocean.  I  answer,  my  friends 
Christianity  would  have  been  a  failure  if  the  ship  had  been 
wrecked  ;  Christianity  would  be  a  failure  if  there  was  any  ocean 
into  which  that  ship  was  afraid  to  enter  ;  Christianity  would  be  a 
failure  if  that  ship  were  known,  at  any  time — at  any  moment  of 
her  existence,  since  the  day  she  was  built  and  rigged  by  divine 
wisdom  and  the  divine  architect,  Christ — if  she  were  known  for  an 
instant  to  have  gone  down  ;  for  a  moment  to  have  let  the  angry 
waters  of  persecution  and  error  close  over  her  head.  Then 
would  Christianity  be  a  failure.  But  this  could  not  be,  for  two 
reasons.  First  of  all,  because  the  helmsman,  whom  Christ  ap- 
pointed, is  at  the  wheel ;  and  he  is  Peter,  and  Peter's  successor 
Second,  because,  in  the  ship,  Himself  seated  in  her,  and  speak- 
ing in  her,  casting  out  the  nets  that  are  to  gather  in  all  those 
who  come  on  board,  and  are  to  be  saved,  is  Christ,  the  Lord  our 
God.  The  great  lessons  that  are  in  this  Gospel  are,  that  Peter's 
boat  cannot  be  wrecked,  because  Christ,  our  Lord,  is  in  her ; 
Peter's  boat  cannot  be  emptied  of  the  living  freight  of  souls, 
because  He  is  in  her  who  commanded  the  nets  to  be  cast  out 
until  the  boat  was  filled  ;  Peter's  boat  cannot  be  destroyed, 
because  Peter  himself,  in  his  successor,  is  at  the  helm.  And 
this  boat  of  Peter's  is  the  Holy  Roman  Catholic  Church.  In  no 
other  ship  launched  out  upon  this  stormy  ocean  of  the  world  is 
the  voice  of  God  heard.  In  every  other  vessel  it  is  the  voice  of 
man  that  commands  the  crew  ;  it  is  the  hand  of  man  that  turns 
the  ship's  prow  to  face  the  storm  ;  it  is  the  hand  of  man  that 
built  the  ship,  and,  consequently,  every  other  ship  of  doctrine 
that  has  ever  been  launched  out  on  the  waves  of  this  world  has 
gone  down  in  shipwreck,  and  in  destruction  ;  whereas,  the  old- 
est of  all,  the  Holy  Catholic  Church,  lives  upon  the  waves  to-day, 
as  fair  to  the  eye,  floating  as  triumphantly  the  standard,  spread- 
ing as  wide  a  sail  as  in  the  days  when  she  came  forth  from  the 
master-hand  of  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.  In  her  the  word  and 
voice  of  God  is  heard.  Christ  sat  in  Peter's  boat ;  and  Christ 
sits  in  Peter's  boat  to-day ;  we  have  His  own  word  for  it 
"  And  heaven  and  earth,"  He  says,  "  shall  pass  away,  but  My 
word  shall  not  pass  away,  and  My  word  is  this :  I  am  with  you 
all  days,  until  the  consummation  of  the  world."     But,  for  what 


The  Divine  Commission  of  the  Church*  639 

purpose,  did  weask,  Art  Thou  with  us?  He  answers,  and 
says:  I  am  with  you  to  lead  you  to  all  truth  ;  to  keep  you  in 
all  truth ;  to  teach  you  all  truth;  and  to  command  you,  that 
even  as  I  have  taught  you,  so  go  you  and  teach  all  nations 
whatsoever  things  I  have  taught  you.  The  voice  of  Christ  is 
in  the  Church ;  the  voice  of  God  has  never  ceased  to  resound 
in  her;  the  voice  of  God  has  never  been  silent,  from  the 
day  that  Mary's  child  first  opened  His  infant  lips  upon  Mary's 
bosom,  until  the  last  hour  of  the  world's  existence.  That  voice 
is  misinterpreted;  that  voice  is  sometimes  misunderstood.  Men 
say,  here  is  the  voice  of  God,  and  there  is  the  voice  of  God  ;  the 
people  lift  up  their  voices  with  loud  demands,  sometimes 
against  law,  sometimes  against  right  and  justice,  and  the  time- 
serving politician  and  statesman  says:  "  It  is  the  voice  of  the 
people;  it  is  the  voice  of  God.  Vox  populi,  vox  Dei."  But  the 
voice  of  the  people  is  not  the  voice  of  God.  There  is,  indeed, 
a  voice  of  God  resounding  on  the  earth  ;  but  it  is  only  heard  in 
the  unerring  Church;  therefore  we  may  say  with  truth,  "  Vox 
ecclesice  vox  Dei ;"  the  voice  of  the  Church  is  the  voice  of  God. 
Wherever  the  voice  of  God  is,  there  no  lie  can  be  uttered,  no 
untruth  can  be  taught,  no  falsehood  can  be  preached  ;  wherever 
the  voice  of  God  is,  there  is  a  voice  that  never  for  an  instant 
contradicts  itself  in  its  teachings  ;  for  it  is  only  enunciating  one 
truth,  derived  from  one  source,  the  mind,  the  heart  of  the 
infinite  wisdom  of  the  Almighty.  Where  is  the  evidence  in 
history  of  a  voice  that  has  ever  spoken  on  this  earth,  which  has 
never  contradicted  itself,  except  the  voice  of  the  Catholic 
Church  ?  I  defy  you  to  find  it.  There  is  not  a  system  of 
religion  which  pretends  to  teach  the  people  at  this  moment 
upon  the  earth,  that  has  not  flagrantly  contradicted  itself,  save 
and  except  the  Holy  Catholic  Church  of  Jesus  Christ.  Take 
any  one  of  them  and  test  it ;  where  is  the  voice  that  teaches 
with  authority,  save  and  except  in  the  Catholic  Church?  Re- 
member wherever  the  voice  of  God  is,  there  that  voice  must 
teach  with  authority  ;  wherever  the  voice  of  God  is,  it  must 
teach  with  certainty  and  clearness  and  emphasis,  not  leaving 
anything  in  doubt,  not  allowing  the  people  to  be  under  any 
misapprehension.  Where  is  that  voice  to  be  heard  to-day, 
save  and  except  in  the  holy  Catholic  Church  ? 

Men  say:   "Is  Christianity  a  failure?"     I  answer,   no!     It 


640  The  Divine  Commission  of  the  Church. 

will  be  a  failure  as  soon  as  that  voice  of  the  Catholic  Church  is 
hushed  ;  it  will  be  a  failure  as  soon  as  some  king,  or  some  em- 
peror, or  some  great  statesman,  successful  in  war  and  in  council, 
is  able  to  bend  the  Catholic  Church  and  make  her  teach  accord- 
ing to  his  notions  or  his  views.  Where,  in  her  history,  has  she 
ever  bowed  to  king  or  potentate?  Where  has  she  ever  shaped 
her  doctrines  to  meet  the  views  of  this  man  and  further  the 
designs  of  this  other  man  because  they  were  able  to  persecute 
her,  as  they  are  persecuting  her  to-day  ?  The  most  powerful 
man  of  the  world  says  to  the  Catholic  Church,  "  You  must  re- 
model your  teachings  ;  you  must  alter  some  of  your  dogmas 
and  some  of  your  first  principles  ;  you  must  admit  that  the 
State  has  a  right  to  educate  the  children ;  that  you  have  no 
right ;  you  must  admit  that  religion  is  not  a  necessary  element 
of  education  ;  I  will  make  you  do  it."  Thus  speaks  Von  Bis- 
marck. He  imagines,  because  he  has  put  his  foot  upon  the 
neck  of  the  bravest  and  most  heroic  race  upon  earth,  that  now 
he  can  trample  upon  the  Church  of  God.  Oh!  fool  that  he  is! 
oh,  foolish  man !  He  thinks,  because  he  has  trampled  upon  a 
nation,  that  he  can  trample  upon  Christ  and  His  holy  Spouse. 
He  says  to  the  Church :  "  I  will  make  a  decree,  and  I  will  ex- 
pel every  Jesuit  in  Germany ;  I  will  persecute  your  bishops  ; 
I  will  take  your  churches  ;  I  will  alienate  your  people  ;  I  will 
persecute  and  imprison  your  priests ;  I  will  put  them  to  death 
if  necessary."  But  the  Church  of  God  stands  calmly  before 
him,  and  says  :  "  You  can  do  all  this,  but  you  cannot  make  me 
change  my  teaching ;  I  am  the  messenger  and  the  voice  ot  God, 
and  God  is  truth !  "  Christ  speaks  in  Peter's  boat.  It  is  true 
that  there  are  many  who  will  not  hear  His  voice.  I  ask  you 
what  is  their  fate  ?  What  is  their  fate  who  refuse  to  hear  the 
voice  of  the  true  Church  ?  They  appeal  to  the  Scriptures.  In 
this  morning's  New  York  Herald,  there  is  a  letter  from  a  man 
who  denies  the  immortality  of  the  soul :  and  he  proves  it  by 
"  five  texts  from  Scripture."  The  very  truth  that  Plato,  the 
pagan  philosopher,  wrote  a  book  to  prove — a  man  who  had 
never  heard  the  name  of  God  ;  who  had  never  known  the  light 
of  God — by  the  natural  light  of  his  benighted,  pagan  intellect, 
arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  the  soul  was  immortal,  and  that 
its  immortality  was  inherent,  and  belonged  to  it  as  its  nature. 
That  which  the  pagan  philosopher  discovered  and  proved  the 


The  Divine  Commission  of  the  Church.  641 

Christian  of  to-day  denies  ;  and  he  quotes  five  texts  of  Scrip- 
ture to  prove  that  the  soul  of  man  is  not  immortal ;  and  that 
men  when  they  die,  even  in  their  sins,  cease  to  exist.  They  have 
no  judgment,  no  consequences,  no  vengeance  ;  for  them  no  tor 
ments ;  they  have  no  hell.  He  proves  it  by  the  Scrip- 
ture, and  gives  the  lie  to  Him  who  said,  "  Depart  from 
me,  ye  accursed  into  everlasting  flames."  That  is  the  fate 
of  all  those  outside  the  Catholic  Church.  They  are 
tossed  about  by  every  whim  and  caprice  of  doctors,  who 
now  start  one  theory,  and  then  another;  who  now  dispute 
the  inspiration  of  the  Scripture,  and  again  the  Divinity 
of  Jesus  Christ ;  who  now  deny  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
and  then  come  and  abuse  me,  and  the  like  of  me,  because  I 
tell  them  that  until  they  step  on  board  of  Peter's  boat  they 
have  no  security,  no  certainty,  no  true  light,  no  true  religion, 
and  that  they  must  go  down.  We  are  called  bigots,  because 
we  preach  the  word  of  God,  and  refuse  to  change  our  teaching 
or  to  adapt  it  to  the  ever  varying  views  of  men.  If  the  Church 
preach  not  the  truth,  then  what  use  is  the  Church  to  the  world  ? 
But  if  the  Church  teach  the  truth  ;  if  she  comes  with  a  message 
from  God,  it  is  not  in  her  power,  nor  in  my  power,  nor  in  any 
man's  power,  to  change  it.  I  come  to  preach  to  you  the  very 
words  of  Christ:  "He  that  will  not  hear  the  Church,  let 
him  be  as  a  heathen  and  a  publican."  If  I  come  then  and  say 
"  It  is  not  necessary  to  hear  the  Catholic  Church  ;  if  you 
love  the  Lord  and  believe,  it  is  all  right :  "  if  I  say  that  I  am 
telling  a  lie  and  I  am  damning  my  own  soul.  I  cannot  do  it.  I 
must  preach  the  message  which  Christ  our  Lord  has  given  me. 
I  should  be  glad  to  preach  a  wider  faith  if  God  would  let  me 
but  I  must  preach  the  message  of  God.  If  they  steel  their 
hearts  and  turn  their  ears  against  our  doctrines,  God  will  hold 
them  accountable  ;  for  He  has  said  :  "  He  that  believeth  net, 
shall  be  condemned." 

Not  only,  my  brethrei.,  is  the  voice  of  Christ  heard  in  that 
Church  in  the  truth  which  has  never  changed  nor  contradicted 
itself  but  the  second  great  action  of  the  Church  of  God  is  pre- 
figured in  our  Divine  Lord's  action  in  this  cay's  Gospel. 
Peter,  He  said,  launch  out  thy  boat  into  the  deep;  and  let 
down  thy  nets  for  a  draught.  It  is  no  longer  a  question 
of  preaching.     The  people  have  heard   the  Lord's  voice ;  they 


642  The  Divine  Commission  of  the  Chwsh. 

have  retired  from  the  shores  of  the  lake,  and  scattered  them- 
selves  to  their  homes,  each  one  taking  with  him  whatever  of 
that  word  fell  upon  the  soil  of  a  good  heart.  Now,  the  next 
operation  begins  ;  and  it  is  between  Christ  and  Peter.  "  Launch 
out  into  the  deep,"  He  says  ;  "  cast  forth  thy  net."  Peter  cast 
out  his  net,  and  he  filled  his  boat  with  fishes.  What  does  this 
mean  ?  It  means  the  prefiguration  of  the  saving  and  sacra- 
mental action  of  the  Church  of  God  ;  for  not  only  is  the  voice 
of  Christ  heard  ;  but  the  action  of  Christ  is  at  work  in  her, 
taking  you  and  me,  and  all  men  who  will  submit  to  that 
action,  out  of  the  waters  of  passion  and  impurity,  and  vain 
desire,  and  every  form  of  sin,  and  lifting  us  up  by  sacramental 
action,  out  of  those  waters,  and  placing  us  in  the  ship  under 
His  very  eyes — in  the  light  of  His  sanctity  and  the  brightness 
of  His  glory.  His  action  lies  in  the  Catholic  Church,  and  she 
alone  can  draw  forth  from  the  stormy,  destructive  waters  of  sin, 
the  soul  that  will  submit  to  be  so  drawn.  A  man  falls  into  that 
sea : — a  man — like  Peter,  in  another  portion  of  the  Gospel — the 
Christian  man — treading  upon  the  fluctuating  waves  of  his  own 
passion,  of  his  own  evi!  desire  and  wickedness,  can  scarcely 
keep  his  footing,  and  can  only  do  it  as  long  as  he  fixes  his  eye 
upon  Jesus  Christ,  and  adheres  to  Him.  But  a  moment  comes, 
as  it  came  to  Peter,  when  the  waves  seem  to  divide  under  ouf 
feet,  when  man  is  sinking,  sinking  into  the  waves  of  his  own 
passions,  of  his  own  baseness,  into  the  waves  of  his  own  corrupt 
nature,  when  he  feels  that  these  waves  are  about  closing  over 
him.  He  is  lost  to  the  sight  of  God;  and  he  sees  Him  no 
more.  God  sees  him  no  more  with  the  eyes  of  love ;  God 
sees  him  no  more  with  the  eyes  of  predilection.  He  has  lost 
his  past  with  all  its  graces,  and  his  future  with  all  its  hopes ; 
he  has  gone  down  in  the  great  ocean  of  human  depravity  and 
human  sin,  and  he  has  sunk  deeply  into  these  waters  of  de- 
struction. Oh !  what  hand  can  save  him !  what  power  can 
touch  him  !  The  teacher  of  a  false  religion  comes  with  his  mes- 
sage of  trust  and  confidence  ;  comes  with  its  message  of  glozing 
and  flattery ;  comes  to  tell  this  fallen,  sinful  man  ;  "  You  are 
an  honest  man  ;  you  are  an  amiable  man  ;  you  have  many  good 
gifts ;  be  not  afraid  ;  trust  in  the  Lord ;  it  is  all  right :  "  whilst  the 
serpent  of  impurity  is  poisoning  his  whole  existence.  Oh !  that 
I  had  the  voice  of  ten  thousand  thunders  of  God,  that  I  might 


The  Divine  Commission  of  the  Church.  643 

itifle  the  false  teachings,  and  drown  the  voice  of  those  who  are 
poisoning  the  people  by  pandering  to  their  vices  and  flattering 
their  vanity,  and  not  able — nor  willing  even  if  able — to  teach  the 
consequences  of  their  sins  !  The  Catholic  Church  alone,  ignor- 
ing whatever  of  good  there  may  be  in  a  man,  if  she  finds  him  in 
mortal  sin,  lays  her  hand  upon  that  sin  ;  she  makes  the  mm 
touch  himself  with  his  own  hand,  look  at  himself,  and  recog- 
nize his  miseries.  She  tears  away  the  bandages  with  which  hi9 
self-love  conceals  the  wound  ;  and  then,  with  her  sacramental 
power  she  cuts  out  all  that  proud  and  corrupt  flesh;  she 
cleanses  the  wound  with  the  saving  blood  of  Jesus  Christ ;  she 
brings  him  forth,  from  out  that  slough,  that  cesspool,  of 
impurity  and  wickedness,  and  cures  him,  and  brings  him 
forth  with  the  tears  of  sorrow  on  his  face,  with  a  new-born  love 
of  God  in  his  heart,  in  the  whiteness  of  his  baptismal  innocence  ; 
and  he  is  now  no  longer  in  the  wiles  of  hell ;  but  he  takes  his 
place,  and  lifts  up  his  eyes  in  gladness  before  the  Lord.  What 
other  church  can  do  that  ?  What  other  religion  even  pretends 
to  do  it,  and  does  it?  In  her  sacraments  she  does  it.  Her 
sacramental  hand  will,  though  sin  be  sunk  into  his  blood,  go 
down  and  sweep  the  very  bottom  of  the  deep  Jake  of  iniquity, 
and  take  even  those  who  lie  there,  fossilized  in  their  sin,  and 
scrape  them  up  from  out  the  very  depths  of  their  misery,  and 
make  them  fit  for  God  once  more.  As  they  are  out  of  the  way 
of  salvation  who  hear  not  the  voice  of  the  Church — the  voice  of 
Christ — so,  also,  these  Catholics  are  outside  of  the  way  of  salva- 
tion, who  will  not  come  and  submit  to  her  cleansing  and  sacra- 
mental power,  who  refuse  to  open  their  souls  to  her,  who  refuse  to 
come  frequently  and  fervently  to  her  confessional,  and  to  her  com- 
munion table.  To  act  thus  is  as  bad  as  if  they  refused  even  to 
hear  her  voice,  even  as  if  they  disputed  her  testimony.  The  bad 
Catholic  is  in  as  bad  a  position,  and  in  even  a  worse  position  — 
than  that  of  the  poor  man  who  disputes,  and  raises  questions  as  to 
whether  the  soul  is  immortal,  and  as  to  whether  Jesus  Christ  is 
God.  Oh,  my  brethren,  let  us  be  wise  in  time;  let  us  have  the 
happiness  to  know  and  to  hear  the  voice  that  speaks  in  the 
Church.  Oh,  let  us  lay  ourselves  open  to  her  sacramental  power, 
and  bare  our  bosoms  to  her  sanctifying  touch  and  cleansing  hand, 
that  so  we  may  be  guided  into  the  treasures  of  her  choicest  and 
best  gifts;  that  so,  if  we  have  not  the  ineffable  gift  of  purity,  if 


644  The  Divine  Commission  of  the  Church. 

we  have  sinned,  we  may,  at  least,  have  our  robes  washed  in  the 
waters  of  grace,  and  restored  to  their  first  brightness  through 
Jesus  Christ,  who  is  our  Saviour ;  and  in  this  hope,  let  us  pass 
the  few  remaining  days  of  our  lives  here,  sharing  in  our  mother's 
struggles ;  taking  a  hand  in  her  quarrels ;  weathering  with  her 
every  storm  that  bursts  over  us  in  the  confidence  that  she  is 
destined  to  triumph  and  to  ride  in  safety  over  the  crest  of  every 
opposing  wave.  It  will  not  always  be  so.  The  haven  is  at  hand. 
The  Church  militant  passes  from  the  angry  ocean  of  her  con- 
tests into  the  calm  and  quiet  haven  of  her  triumph.  Oh,  in  that 
harbor,  no  stormy  winds  shall  ever  blow ;  no  angry  waves  shall 
ever  raise  their  foaming  crests ;  there,  and  only  there,  when  the 
night,  with  its  tempests  and  storms  of  persecution  and  of  diffi- 
culty— the  night,  with  its  buffetings  upon  the  black  face  of  the 
angry  ocean — when  all  that  has  been  passed  through ;  in  the 
morning  shall  the  Christian  come  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  his  eter- 
nity. Then  will  he  hear  the  voice  of  Him  who  was  present  in 
the  storm,  saying  to  the  waves,  "  Be  still !  Be  calm !  "  and  to 
the  stormy  winds  howling  around,  "  Depart !  Leave  us  in 
peace."  Then  the  clouds  shall  fade,  and  every  ripple  shall 
cease ;  and  there,  on  that  ocean,  which  was  so  stormy,  every 
angry  gust  of  wind  shall  die  away  into  perfect  calm  ;  and,  in 
the  distant  horizon  before  us,  we  shall  behold  the  Church  tri- 
umphant— while,  like  the  spread  of  the  illimitable  ocean,  we 
see  that  pacific  ocean  of  God's  eternity  illumined  by  the  sun- 
shine  of  His  blessedness.  And  there  will  be  every  beauty  and 
happiness.  All  that  shall  be  ours  if  we  only  fight  the  good 
fight,  if  we  only  keep  the  faith,  and  the  commands  of  God 
delivered  to  us  by  His  Holy  Church. 


FATHER  BUllKE'S  ANSWERS 


Froude,   the   English   fiiSTORiAN. 


FIRST   LECTURE. 


DELIVERED   IN  THE  ACADEMY  OP  MUSIC,  NEW   YOKE,  NOVEMBER 
12,  1872. 


[These  matchless  historical  lectures  are  printed  from  the  accurate  r«riti,'i?n  re 
ports  of  the  New  York  Irtih  Wori<l,  and  hare  been  oarofully  revised] 


Ladies  and  Gektlemes  : 

It  is  a  strange  fact  that  the  old  battle,  which  has  been  raging 
for  seven  hundred  years,  should  continue  so  far  away  from  the 
old  land.  The  question  on  which  I  am  come  to  speak  to  you 
this  evening  is  one  that  his  been  disputed  at  many  a  council 
board,  one  that  has  been  disputed  in  many  a  parliament,  one 
that  has  been  disputed  on  many  a  wett-fought  field,  ami  is  not 
yet  decided — the  question  between  England  ami  Ireland. 
Amongst  the  visitors  to  America  who  eame  over  this  rear 
there  was  one  gentleman  distinguished  in  Europe  for  his  style 
of  writing  and  for  his  historical  knowledge,  the  author  of  several 
works  which  have  created  a  profound  sensation,  at  least  for 
their  originality.  Mr.  Froude  lias  frankly  stated  that  lie  came 
over  to  this  country  to  deal  with  the  English  and  with  tho 
Irish  question,  viewing  it  from  an  English  standpoint;  that. 
like  a  tme  man,  he  came  to  America  to  make  the  bes( 
that  he  could  for  his  own  country;  that  be  eame  to  state  that 
case  to  an  American  public  as  to  a  grand  jury,  and  to  de- 
mand a  verdict  from  them  the  most  extraordinary  that  wm 
ever  vet  demanded  from  any  people — namely,  the  declaration 


2         FATHER  BURKE'S  ANSWERS  TO  FROUDB. 

that  England  was  right  in  the  manner  in  which  she  has  treated 
my  native  land  for  seven  hundred  years.  It  seems,  according 
to  this  learned  gentleman,  that  we  Irish  have  been  badly 
treated ;  that  he  confesses,  but  he  put  in  as  a  plea  that  we 
only  got  what  we  deserved.  It  is  true,  he  says,  that  we  have  gov- 
erned them  badly  ;  the  reason  is,  because  it  was  impossible  to 
govern  them  rightly.  It  is  true  that  we  have  robbed  them  • 
the  reason  is,  because  it  was  a  pity  to  leave  them  their  own, 
they  made  such  a  bad  use  of  it.  It  is  true  we  have  persecuted 
them ;  the  reason  is  persecution  was  a  fashion  of  the  time  and 
the  order  of  the  day.  On  those  pleas  there  is  not  a  criminal 
ui  prison  to-day  in  the  United  States  that  should  not  instantly 
get  his  freedom  by  acknowledging  his  crime  and  pleading  some 
extenuating  circumstance.  Our  ideas  about  Ireland  have  been 
all  wrong,  it  seems.  Seven  hundred  years  ago  the  exigencies 
of  the  time  demanded  the  foundation  of  a  strong  British 
empire  ;  in  order  to  do  this,  Ireland  had  to  be  conquered,  and 
Ireland  was  conquered.  Since  that  time  the  one  ruling  idea 
in  the  English  mind  has  been  to  do  all  the  good  that  they  could 
for  the  Irish.  Their  legislation  and  their  action  has  not  always 
been  tender,  but  it  has  been  always  beneficent.  They  some- 
times were  severe  ;  but  they  were  severe  to  us  for  our  own 
good,  and  the  difficulty  of  England  has  been  the  Irish  during 
these  long  hundreds  of  years ;  they  never  understood  their 
own  interests  or  knew  what  was  for  their  own  good.  Now, 
the  American  mind  is  enlightened,  and  henceforth  no  Irishman 
must  complain  of  the  past  in  this  new  light  in  which  Mr.  Froude 
puts  it  before  us.  Now,  the  amiable  gentleman  tells  us,  what 
has  been  our  fate  in  the  past  he  greatly  fears  we  must  recon- 
cile ourselves  to  in  the  future.  lie  comes  to  tell  us  his  version 
of  the  history  of  Ireland,  and  also  to  solve  Ireland's  difficulty, 
and  to  lead  us  out  of  all  the  miseries  that  have  been  our  lot 
for  hundreds  of  years.  When  he  came,  many  persons  ques- 
tioned what  was  the  motive  or  the  reason  of  his  coming.  1 
have  heard  people  speaking  all  round  me,  and  assigning  to  the 
learned  gentleman  this  motive  or  that.  Some  people  said  he 
was  an  emissary  of  the  English  Government,  that  they  sent 
him  here  because  they  were  beginning  to  be  afraid  of  the 
rising  power  of  Ireland  in  this  great  nation;  that  they  saw 
here  eight  millions  of  Irishmen  by  birth,  and  perhaps  fourteen 
millions  by  descent ;  and  that  they  knew  enough  of  the  Irish 
to  realize  that  the  Almighty  God  blessed  them  always  with 
an  extraordinary  power,  not  only  to  preserve  themselves,  but 
to  spread  themselves,  until  in  a  few  years  not  fourteen,  but 
fifty  millions  of  descendants  of  Irish  blood  and  of  Irish  raos 


FIR6T   LECTLKK.  f 

will  be  in  this  land.  According  to  those  who  tins  sum.,  , 
England  wants  to  check  the  sympathy  of  the  American  ; 
for  their  Irish  fellow-citizens  ;  and  it  was  considered  that  the 
best  way  to  effect  this  was  to  aend  a  learned  man  .  . 
plausible  story  to  this  country,  a  man  with  a  singular  i 
of  viewing  facta  In  the  light  which  he  wishes  him*  If  to  view 
them  and  put  them  before  others,  a  man  with  the  extraor- 
dinary power  of  so  mixing  up  these  facts  that  many  simple- 
minded  people  will  look  upon  them  as  he  puts  them  before 

them  as  true,  and  whose  mission  it  was  to  alienate  the  mind 
of  America  from  Ireland  to-day  by  showing  what  an  imprac- 
ticable, obstinate,  accursed  race  we  are. 

Others,  again,  surmise  that  the  learned  gentleman  can  • 
another  purpose.  They  said,  England  ie  in  the  hour  of  bel 
weakness;  she  is  tottering  last  and  visibly  to  her  ruin' 
the  disruption  of  that  old  empire  is  visibly  approaching ; 
she  is  to-day  cast  off'  without  an  ally  in  Europe,  her  army  a 
cipher,  her  fleet  nothing — according  to  Mr.  Reade,  a  great 
authority  on  this  question — nothing  to  be  compared  to  the 
rival  fleet  of  the  great  Russian  power  now  growing  up. 
When  France  was  paralyzed  by  her  late  defeat,  England  lost 
her  best  ally.  The  three  emperors,  in  their  meeting  theoth<  r 
day,  contemptuously  ignored  her,  and  they  settled  the  affairs 
of  the  world  without  as  much  as  mentioning  the  name  of  that 
kingdom,  which  was  once  so  powerful.  Her  resources  of 
coal  and  iron  are  failing,  her  people  are  discontented,  and  she 
is  showing  every  sign  of  decay.  Thus  did  some  people  argue 
that  England  was  anxious  fur  an  American  alliance:  for,  they 
said,  "  What  would  be  more  natural  than  that  the 
ing  empire  should  seek  to  lean  on  the  strong,  mighty,  vigor- 
ous young  arm  of  America  ?" 

I  have  heard  others  say  that  the  gentleman  same  over  to 
this  country  on  the  invitation  of  a  little  cli'/ue  i 
bigots  in  this  country.     Men    who,   feeling   that  the   night  of 
religious  bigotry  and  sectarian  bitterness  is  fa  to  a 

close  before  the  increasing  light  of  American  intelligence  and 
education,  would  fain  prolong  the  darkness  for  an  hour  or 
two  by  whatever  help  Mr.  Fronde  could  lend  them. 

But  I   protest  to  you,  gentlemen,  here  to-night  that   I   have 
heard  all  these  motives  assigned  to  this  learned  man  without 
givii>g  them  the  least  attention.     I  believe   Mr.  FrOttde'l  mo- 
tives to  be" simple,  straightforward,  honorable,  and  jm!; 
I  am  willing  to  give  him  credit  for  the  b  sad  I 

consider  him  perfectly  Incapable  of  lending  himself  to  any 
base   or    sordid    proceedings  from    a    bsSS    or  sordid   moiivu 


4         FATHEB  BUKK.E 8  ANSWERS  TO  FEOUDB. 

But  as  the  learned  gentleman's  motives  have  been  so  freely 
canvassed  and  criticised,  and,  1  believe,  indeed,  in  many  cases 
misinterpreted,  so  my  own  motives  in  coming  here  to-night 
may  be  perhaps  also  misinterpreted  and  misunderstood,  unless  1 
state  them  clearly  and  plainly.  As  he  is  said  to  come  as  an 
emissary  of  the  English  Government,  so  I  may  be  said,  per- 
haps to  appear  as  an  emissary  of  rebellion  or  of  revolution.  As 
he  is  supposed  by  some  to  have  the  sinister  motive  of  alienat- 
ing the  American  mind  from  the  Irish  citizenship  of  the  States, 
so  I  may  be  suspected  of  endeavoring  to  excite  religious  or 
political  hatred. 

Now,  I  protest  these  are  not  my  motives ;  1  come  here  to- 
night simply  to  vindicate  the  honor  of  Ireland  in  her  history. 
I  come  here  to-night  lest  any  man  should  think  that  in  this 
our  day,  or  in  any  day,  Ireland  is  to  be  left  without  a  son  who 
will  speak  for  the  mother  that  bore  him. 

And  first  of  all  1  hold  that  Mr.  Eroude  is  unfit  for  the  task 
he  has  undertaken  for  three  great  reasons:  First,  because  1 
find  in  the  writings  of  this  learned  gentleman  that  he  solemnly 
and  emphatically  declares  that  he  despairs  of  ever  finding  a 
remedy  for  Ireland,  and  he  gives  it  up  as  a  bad  job.  Here 
are  the  words,  written  in  one  of  his  essays  a  few  years  ago : 
"The  present  hope,"  he  says,  "is  that  by  assiduous  justice" 
(that  is  to  say,  by  conceding  everything  that  the  Irish  please  to 
ask)  "  we  shall  disarm  that  enmity,  and  convince  them  of  our 
good- will."  It  may  be  so ;  there  are  persons  sanguine  enough 
to  hope  that  the  Irish  will  be  so  moderate  in  what  they  de- 
mand, and  the  English  so  liberal  in  what  they  grant,  that  at 
last  we  shall  fling  ourselves  into  each  other's  arms  in  tears  of 
mutual  forgiveness.  1  do  not  share  that  expectation;  it  i3 
more  likely  they  will  push  their  importunities  until  at  last 
we  turn  upon  them  and  refuse  to  yield  further.  And  there 
will  be  a  struggle  once  more ;  and  either  emigration  to 
America  will  increase  in  volume  until  it  has  carried  the  entire 
race  teyond  our  reach,  or  in  some  shape  or  other  they  will 
again  have  to  be  coerced  into  submission.  "  Banish  them  or 
coerce  them":  there  is  the  true  English  speech.  -"My  oni^ 
remedy,"  he  emphatically  says,  "  my  only  hope,  my  only 
prospect  for  the  future  for  Ireland  is,  let  them  all  go  to 
America;  have  done  with  the  race;  give  to  them  a  land  at 
least  that  we  have  endeavored  to  make  for  seven  hundred 
years  a  desert  and  a  solitude ;  or,  if  they  remain  at  home,  they 
will  have  to  be  coerced  into  submission.'"  I  hold  that  that 
man  has  no  right  to  come  to  America  to  tell  the  American 
people  and  the  Irish  in  America  that  he  cannct  describe  the 


FIRST    LECTUR*.  I 

horoscope   ,>f  Ireland's   future.     He  ought    o  be  ashamed  to 
attempt  it  alter  having  uttered  SUCh  words. 

The  second  reason  why  1    say   lie   is  unlit  for  the  teak  of 
describing   Irish    history    is   because   of  bia    0  Qtempt   l^r    tin; 

Irish  people.    The  original  sin  <>f  the   Englishman  has 

been  his  contempt  for  the  Irish.  It  lies  deep,  though  dor- 
mant, in  the  heart  of  almost  every  Englishman.  The  average 
Englishman  despises  the  Irishman,  looks  down  upon  him  as  a 
being  almost  inferior  in  nature.  Now,  I  speak  not  from  pre- 
•udice,  but  from  an  intercourse  of  years,  for  I  have  lived 
amongst  them.  I  have  known  Englishmen,  amiable  and 
generous  themselves,  charming  characters,  who  would  not 
for  the  whole  world  nourish  wilfully  a  feeling  of  contempt  in 
their  hearts  for  any  one,  much  less  to  express  it  in  words  ; 
yet  I  have  seen  them  manifest  in  a  thousand  forms  that 
contempt  for  the  Irish  which  seems  to  be  their  very  natire.  1 
am  sorry  to  say  that  1  caunot  make  any  exception  amongst 
the  Protestants  and  Catholics  of  England  in  this  feeling.  1 
mention  this  not  to  excite  animosity,  or  to  create  bad  blood 
or  bitter  feeling— no,  1  protest  this  is  not  my  meaning  ;  but 
I  mention  this  because  I  am  convinced  it  lies  at  the  very  root 
of  this  antipathy  and  of  that  hatred  between  the  English  and 
Irish,  which  seems  to  be  incurable,  and  I  verily  believe  that 
until  that  feeling  is  destroyed  you  never  can  have  cordial 
union  between  these  two  countries,  and  the  only  way  to 
destroy  it  is  by  so  raising  Ireland  through  justice  and"  by  home 
legislation  that  she  will  attain  such  a  position  that  she  will 
command  and  enforce  the  respect  of  her  English  fellow- 
subjects.  Mr.  Froude  himself,  who,  1  am  sure,  is  incapable 
of  any  ungenerous  sentiment  toward  any  man  or  any  people, 
is  an  actual  living  example  of  that  feeling  of  contempt  of 
which  I  speak.  In  November,  1856,  this  learned  gentleman 
addressed  a  Scottish  assembly  in  Edinburgh.  The  subject  ->f 
his  address  was,  "  The  Effect"  of  the  Protestant  Reformation 
upon  Scottish  Character."  According  to  him,  it  made  the 
Scotch  the  finest  people  on  the  nice  of  the  earth.  Originally 
fine,  they  never  got  their  last  touch  that  made  them,  aa  it 
were,  archangels  amongst  men,  until  the  holy  hand  of  John 
Knox  touched  them.  On  that  occasion  the  learned  gentleman 
introduced  himself  to  his  Scottish  audience  in  the  folio 
words:  "  I  have  undertaken,"  he  says,  "to  speak  this  ev< 
on  the  effects  of  the  Reformation  in  Scotland,  and  I  mm 

myself  a  very  bold  person  to  have  c here  on  anj   luoh 

undertaking.  "  In  the  first  place,  the  subjeoi  la  oi  e  with  which 
It  is  presumptuous  for  a  stranger  to  meddle.     Great  national 


6  FATHER   BURKE  8   ANSWERS   TO    FROUDR. 

movements  can  only  be  understood  properly  by  the  pe&ple 
whose  disposition  they  represent.  We  see  ourselves  by  our 
own  history  that  Englishmen  only  can  properly  comprehend 
it.  It  is  the  same  with  every  considerable  nation  that 
works  out  their  own  political  and  spiritual  lives  through 
tempers,  humors,  and  passions  peculiar  to  themselves,  and  the 
same  disposition  which  produces  the  result  is  required  to 
interpret  it  afterwards."  Did  the  learned  gentleman  offer  any 
such  apology  for  entering  so  boldly  upon  the  discussion  of 
Irish  affairs  1  Oh  !  no  ;  there  was  no  apology  necessary  ;  he 
was  only  going  to  speak  of  the  mere  Irish.  There  was  no 
word  to  express  his  own  fears  that,  perhaps,  he  did  not 
understand  the  Irish  character  or  the  subject  upon  which  he 
was  about  to  treat ;  there  was  no  apology  to  the  Irish  in 
America — the  fourteen  millions — if  he  so  boldly  was  to  take 
up  their  history,  endeavoring  to  hold  them  up  as  a  licentious, 
immoral,  irreligious,  contemptuous,  obstinate,  unconquerable 
-ace  ;  not  at  all !  It  was  not  necessary  ;  they  were  only  Irish. 
H'  they  were  Scottish,  then  the  learned  gentleman  would  have 
come  "with  a  thousand  apologies  for  his  own  presumption  in 
venturing  to  approach  such  a  delicate  subject  as  the  delineation 
of  the  sweet  Scottish  character,  or  anything  connected  with  it. 
What,  on  the  other  hand,  is  his  treatment  of  the  Irish?  1 
have — in  this  book  before  me — I  have  words  that  came  from 
his  pen,  and  I  protest  as  I  read  them  I  feel  every  drop  of 
my  blood  boil  in  my  veins  when  the  gentleman  said,  "  The 
Irish  may  be  good  at  the  voting-booths,  but  they  are  no  good 
to  handle  a  rifle."  He  compares  us  in  this  essay  to  a 
"pack  of  hounds."  He  says:  "To  deliver  Ireland — to  give 
Ireland  any  meed — would  be  the  same  as  if  a  gentleman, 
addressing  his  hounds,  said,  '  I  give  you  your  freedom  ;  now, 
go  out  to  act  for  yourselves.' "  That  is,  he  means  to  say,  that, 
after  worrying  all  the  sheep  in  the  neighborhood,  they  ended 
by  tearing  each  other  to  pieces.  I  deplore  this  feeling.  The 
man  who  is  possessed  of  it  can  never  understand  the  philosophy 
of  Irish  history. 

Thirdly,  Mr.  Froude  is  utterly  unfit  for  the  task  of  delinea- 
ting and  interpreting  the  history  of  the  Irish  people  because 
of  the  more  than  contempt  and  bitter  hatred  and  detestation 
in  which  he  holds  the  Catholic  religion  and  the  Catholic 
Church.  In  this  book  before  me  he  speaks  of  the  Catholic 
Church  as  an  old  serpent  whose  poisonous  fangs  have  been 
withdrawn  from  her,  and  she  is  now  as  a  Witch  of  Endor, 
mumbling  curses  to-day  because  she  cannot  burn  at  the  stake 
and  shed  blood  as  'f  old.     He  most  invariably  charges  the 


FIRST    I.ECTUKK.  7 

Church  and  makes  her  responsible  for  the  Fr  n  h  massac      I  I 
Saint  Bartholomew-^  day;  for  the  persecutions  of  the  Duke 

of  Alva,  before  those  days,  that  originated  from  the  POVOl 

in    the  Netherlands   against  Philip  the  Second;   for 

murder  that  has  been  committed  and    fouler    but  hery.      He 
says,  from   the  virus  of  a  most  int. use    prejudice,   that    the 
Catholic   Church   lies   at   the   bottom    of    them    all,    a 
responsible   for  them.     The   very    gentlemen    thai 
and  surrounded   him  when  he  came   to    New    fork    gave   him 
plainly  to  understand,  where  the  Catholic  religion 
where  a  favorite  theory  is  to  be  worked  Out,  where  a  fa 
view  is  to  be  proved,  that  they  did  not  consider  him  a  reliable, 
trustworthy  witness  or,  where   his  prejudices 
historian.      Yet    1     again    declare — not    that    1    believe     this 
gentleman  to  be  capable  of  lying;    I  believe  he  is  incapable — 
but,  wherever  prejudice  comes  in  such  as  he  has,  he  di 
the   most   well-known   facts   for    his    own    purposes.      This 
gentleman  wishes  to    exalt  Queen    Elizabeth    by    blackening 
Mary,  Queen  of  Scots.     In  doing  this  he  has  been  con 
by  a  citizen  of  Brooklyn  of  putting  his  own  words  as  if  they 
were  the  words  of  ancient  chronicles  and  ancient  laws,  deeds, 
and  documents,  and  the  taunt  has  been  flung  at  him,  "  that  Mr. 
Fronde  has  never  grasped  the  meaning  of  inverted  commas." 
Henry  the  Eighth,  of  blessed  memory,  has  been  painted  by 
this  historian  as  a  most  estimable  man.  as  chaste  and  as  holy 
as   a   monk,  bless   your  soul !     A    man   that    never    r  i 
anybody,  who    every   day   was    burning    with    seal    for   the 
public  good.     As  to  putting  away  his  wife  and  taking  in  the 
young  and  beautiful  Anne  Boleyn  to  his  embrace,  thai   ".* 
from  a  chaste  anxiety  for  the  public  good  !     All  the  atrc 
of  this  monster  in  human  form — all — melt  away  under   Mr. 
Fronde's  eye,  and  Henry  the  Eighth  rises  before  us  in  such  a 
form  that  even  the  Protestants   in    England,  when   they  heard 
Mr.   Fronde's    description    of    him,   said:    "Oh!    you    have 
mistaken  your  man,  sir." 

One  fact  will  show  you  how  this  gentleman  treats  history: 
When  King  Henry  "the  Eighth  declared  war  against  the 
Church,  and  when  all  England  was  convulsed  by  this  tyranny 
—one.  day  hanging  a  Catholic  because  he  would  not  deny  tho 
supremacy  of  the  Pope,  the  next  day  hanging  a  Protestant  be- 
cause he  denied  the  Peal  Presence — anybody  thai  differed 
from  Henry  was  sure  to  be  sent  to  the  scaffold.  It  waat  ION 
and  expeditions  way  of  silencing  all  argument. 

During  this  time,  when  the  jpnninfl  to 

be  pillaged  the  Catholic  clergy  of  England,  especially  tOOM 


b  FATHEB    BUKK.E  8    AN8WEKS   TO    FKOUDB. 

who  remained  faithful  to  the  Pope,  were  most  odious  to  the 
tyrant,  and  such  was  the  slavish  acquiescence  of  the  English 
people  that  they  began  to  hate  their  clergy  in  order  to  please 
their  king.  Well,  at  this  time  a  certain  man,  whose  name  waa 
Iluiin,  was  lodged  a  prisoner  in  the  Tower  and  hanged 
by  the  neck.  There  was  a  coroner's  inquest  held  upon  him, 
and  the  twelve  blackguards — 1  can  call  them  nothing  else — in 
order  to  express  their  hatred  for  the  Church  and  to  please  the 
powers  which  were,  found  a  verdict  against  the  chancellor  of 
the  Bishop  of  London,  a  most  excellent  priest,  whom  every- 
body knew  to  be  such.  When  the  bishop  heard  of  this  ver 
diet,  he  applied  to  the  Prime  Minister  to  have  the  verdict 
quashed.  He  brought  the  matter  before  the  House  of  Lords, 
in  order  that  the  character  of  his  chancellor  might  be  fully 
vindicated.  The  king's  Attorney-General  took  cognizance  of 
it  by  a  solemn  decree,  and  the  verdictt  of  the  coroner's  in- 
quest was  set  aside,  and  the  twelve  men  declared  to  be 
twelve  perjurers.  Now  listen  to  Mr.  Froude's  version  of  that 
story.  He  says :  "  The  clergy  of  the  time  were  reduced  to 
such  a  dreadful  state  that  actually  a  coroner's  inquest  re- 
turned a  verdict  of  wilful  murder  against  the  chancellor  of  the 
Bishop  of  London,  and  the  bishop  was  obliged  to  apply  to  Car- 
dinal Wolsey  to  have  a  special  jury  to  try  him,  because  if  h«» 
took  any  twelve  men  in  London,  they  would  have  found  him 
guilty."  Leaving  the  reader  under  the  impression  that  this 
priest,  this  chancellor,  was  a  monster  of  iniquity,  and  the 
priests  of  the  time  were  as  bad  as  he — leaving  the  impres- 
sion that  a  man  was  guilty  of  the  murder  who  was  innocent  as 
Abel,  and  who,  if  put  for  trial  before  twelve  of  his  countrymen, 
they  would  have  found  him  guilty  on  the  evidence — this  is 
the  version  he  puts  upon  it,  he  knowing  the  facts  as  well  as  1 
know  them. 

Well,  now,  my  friends,  1  come  to  consider  the  subject  of 
his  fiist  lecture.  Indeed,  I  must  say  I  never  practically  expe- 
rienced the  difficulty  of  hunting  a  will-o'-the-wisp  in  a  marsh 
until  I  came  to  follow  this  learned  gentleman  in  his  first 
lecture.  I  say  nothing  disrespectful  of  him  at  all,  but  simply 
say  he  covered  so  much  ground  at  such  unequal  distances  that 
it  was  impossible  to  follow  him.  He  began  by  romancing 
how  General  Rufus  King  wrote  such  a  letter  about  certain 
Irishmen,  and  said  that  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  sympathized 
with  England,  while  the  Protestants  of  Ireland  were  breast 
high  for  America  In  the  old  struggle  between  this  country  and 
Great  Britain.  All  these  questions  which  belong  to  our  day 
I  will  leave  aside  for  the  close  of  these  lectures.     When  1 


FIH8T   1.HTURI.  H 

come  to  speak  of  the  men  and  things  of  our  own  da\ ,  then  1 
shall  have  great  pleasure  in  taking  up  Mr.  Froude'l 
But,  coming  home  to  the  great  question  of  Ireland,  what  d<  •  s 
this  gentleman  tell  us]  For  seven  hundred  years  Ireland 
was  invaded  by  the  Anglo-Normans.  The  fust  thug.  Appa- 
rently, that  he  wishes  to  do  is  to  justify  this  invasion,  and 
establish  this  principle,  that  the  Normans  wen  right  in 
coming  to  Ireland.  He  began  by  drawing  a  terrible  picture 
of  the  state  of  Ireland  before  the  invasion.  "They  we. 
ting  each  other's  throats,  the  whole  land  was  covered  with 
bloodshed.  There  was  in  Ireland  neither  religion,  morality,  :.-.r 
government;  therefore  the  Pope  found  it  necessary  to  send  the 
Normans  to  Ireland,  as  you  would  send  a  policeman  in  a 
saloon  where  the  people  were  killing  one  another.'1  This  is 
his  justification,  that  in  Ireland,  seven  hundred  years  ago,  just 
before  the  Norman  invasion,  there  was  neither  religion, 
morality,  or  government.      Let  us  see  if  he  is  right. 

The  first  proof  that  he  gives  that  there  was  no  gov< 
in  Ireland  is  a  most  insidious  statement.     lie  Bays  :  ••  Bow 
could  there  be  any  government  in  a    country  where    every 
family  maintained  itself  according   to   its  own  ideas  of  right 
and   wrong,  acknowledging  no   authority."     Now,   if  this   be 
true  in  our  sense  of  the  word  "  family,"  certainly  Ireland  was 
in   a  most  deplorable    state — every    family    governing    itself 
according   to   its   notions,  and   acknowledging    do   authority. 
What  does  he  mean  by  the  words  "  everj  family  "  I     Sneak- 
ing to  Americans  in  the  nineteenth  century,  it  means  every 
household  in  the  land.     Wo  speak  of  family  as  composed  "f 
father,  mother,  and  three  or  four  children  gathered  around  the 
domestic  hearth  ;  this  is  our  idea  of  the  word  family.     I  I 
admit  if  every  family  in  Ireland  were  governed  by  their  own 
ideas,  admitting   of  no  authority    over  them,  be    his  . 
fished  his  case  in  one  thing  against  Ireland.     Hut   what   is  the 
meaning  of  the  words"  every  family  "  ?    As  every  Irishman  who 
hears   me  to-night   knows,  it   meant  the  " sept, "  or  the  tribe, 
that  had  the  same  name.     They  owned  two  or  three  counties 
and  a  large  extent  of  territory.     The  men  of  the  same  name 
were  called  the  men  of  the  same  family.     '1  I 
of  Leinster,  the  O'Toolesof  Wicklow,  the  <  > T.\  rnes  in  K 
the  O'Conors  of  Connaught,  the  O'Neils  and  the  O'Donnelli 

of  Ulster.     The  family   meant  a  nation.     Two  or  three  . 
ties  were  governed  by  one  chieftain  and   represented   by  one 
man  of  the  sept.    It  is  quite  true  that  each  family  governed 
itself  In  its  own  independence,  and  acknowledged  no  superior. 
There  were  fpre  great  families  in  Ireland,     The  ON  onora  in 


10  FATHER   BURKe's    ANSWERS   TO    FROUDE. 

Connaught,  the  0*i\V:,s  in  Ulster,  the  MacLaughlins  in  Meath 
the  O'Briens  in  Minister,  and  the  MacMurfaghs  in  Leinster. 
And  under  these  five  great  heads  there  were  minor  septs  and 
smailei  families,  each  counting  from  five  or  six  hundred  to 
perhaps  a  thousand  fighting  men,  but  all  acknowledging  in  the 
different  provinces  the  sovereignty  of  the  five  great  royal 
houses.  These  five  houses,  again,  elected  their  monarch,  or 
supreme  ruler,  called  the  Ard-righ,  who  dwelt  in  Tara.  Now, 
I  ask  you,  if  family  meant  the  whole,  sept  or  tribe,  or  arm\ 
\n  the  field,  defending  their  families,  having  their  regular 
eonstituted  authority  and  head,  is  it  fair  to  say  that  the 
country  was  in  anarchy  because  every  family  governed  them- 
selves according  to  their  own  notions'?  Is  it  fair  for  this 
gentleman  to  try  to  hoodwink  and  deceive  the  American  jury, 
to  which  he  has  made  his  appeal,  by  describing  the  Irish 
family,  which  meant  a  sept  or  tribe,  as  a  family  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  which  means  only  the  head  of  the  house  with 
the  mother  and  the  children  1 

Again  he  says  :  "  In  this  deplorable  state  the  people  lived 
like  the  New  Zealanders  of  to-day — lived  in  underground 
caves."  And  then  he  boldly  says  "  that  1  myself  opened 
up  in  Ireland  one  of  these  underground  houses  of  the  Irish 
people."  Now,  mark.  This  gentleman  lived  in  Ireland  a  few 
years  ago,  and  he  discovered  a  rath  in  Kerry.  In  it  he  found 
some  remains  of  mussel-shells  and  bones.  At  the  time  of  the 
discovery  he  had  the  most  learned  archaeologist  in  Ireland  with 
him,  and  they  put  together  their  heads  about  it.  Mr.  Froude 
has  written  in  this  very  book  "  that  what  these  places  were 
intended  for,  or  the  uses  they  were  applied  to,  baffled  all 
conjecture ;  no  one  could  tell."  Then  if  it  baffled  all  conjec- 
ture, and  he  did  not  know  what  to  make  of  it — if  it  so  puzzled 
him  then  that  no  man  could  declare  what  they  were  for — 
what  right  has  he  to  come  out  to  America  and  say  they  were 
the  ordinary  dwellings  of  the  people? 

In  order  to  understand  the  Norman  invasion,  I  must  ask 
you  to  consider  first,  my  friends,  the  ancient  Irish  constitution 
which  governed  the  land.  Ireland  was  governed  by  "  septs," 
or  families.  The  land  from  time  immemorial  was  in  the 
possession  of  these  families  or  tribes  ;  each  tribe  elected  its 
own  chieftain,  and  to  him  they  paid  the  most  devoted  obedi- 
ence and  allegiance,  so  that  the  fidelity  of  the  Irish  clansman 
to  his  chief  was  proverbial.  The  chief,  during  his  life-time, 
convoked  an  assembly  of  the  tribe  again,  and  they  elected 
from  amongst  the  prir.ccs  of  his  family  the  best  and  the 
strongest  man   to  be  his  successor,  and  they  called  him  the 


FIRST   LECTURE.  11 

Taniil.    The  object  of  this  was  that  the  successors  of  tho 
king  m.ght  be  known,  and  at  the  king's  death  or  the  prii 
death   there  might  be  no  riut  or  bloodshed  or  contention  for 

the  right  of  succession  to  him.     Was  this  not   B  wise 
The  elective   monarchy  has  its  advantages.     The   beel   man 
comes  to  the  front,  because  he  is  the  choice  of  his  fellow-men  : 
for  when  they  come  to  elect  a  successor  t<>  their  prince,  they 
choose  the  best  man,  not  the  king's  eldest  son,  who  migfa 
a  booty  or  a  fool.     And  so  they  came  together  and  wisely 
selected   the  best,  the  strongest,  the  bravest,  and   the   « 
man;  and  he  was  acknowledged  to  have  the  right   to  the  suc- 
cession.    He  was  the  Tanitt,  according  to  the  vm  of 
Ireland.      Well,  these  families,  as  we  said,  in  the  various  pro- 
vinces  of  Ireland  owed  allegiance  and  paid  it  to  the  king  of 
the  provinces.     He  was  one  of  the  five  great  families  • 
"  The  five  great  families   of  Ireland:'1      Each   prince   had    Ma 
own  judge   or  brehon,  who   administered  justioe  in  the  i 
»o  the  people.    These  brehon  judges  were  learned  men.    The 
historians  of  the  time  tell  us  that  they  could  speak  La1 
fluently  as  they  could  speak  Irish.     They  had  established  a 
code  of  law,  and  all  their  colleges  studied  that  law  ;  and  when 
they  had    graduated    in    their    studies,  came    home    to 
respective  septs  or  tribes,  and  were  established  as 
brehons    over    the    people.       Nay,     more;     nowhere    ir    (he 
history  of  the  island  do  we  hear  of  an  instance  where  a  man 
rebelled  or  protested  against  the  decision  of  his  brehon  j 
Then  these  five  monarchs  in  the  provinces  elected  an  Ard 
or    high  king.     With  him    they    sat    in    council    «n    nat 
matters  within  the  halls  of  imperial  Tara. 

There  Patrick  found  them  in  the  year  482,  minstrel,  bard. 
and  brehon,  prince,  crowned    monarch,  and  king;    tier-    did 
he  find  them  discussing  like  lords  and  true  mm  the  afl 
the  nation,  when  he  preached  to  them  the  faith  ot  .lesus  (  fonst 
And  while  this  constitution  remained,  the  clansmen  pud  no 
lent  for  their  land.      Tie-  land  of  the  tribe  or  family  w.. 
in  common.     It   was  the   common  property  ot    all,  ai 
Wehon  or  judge  divided  it,  and  gave  to  each  ...an  wha 
necessary  for  him,  with   free   right   to   pasturage  over  the 
whole.    Thev  had  no  idea  of  slavery  or  serfdom  among  Hem. 
The  Irish  clansman  was  of  tie-  same   blood    with  his  ofa 
O'Brien  who  sat  in  tie-  saddle  at  tie-  lead  of  his  men,  was  i  | 
related  to  (!)  Gallowglaas  O'Brien  that  was  in  the  ranks,     v. 
euch   thing  as   looking   down   by  the  chieftains  upon   theii 
people      No  such  thin-  as  a  cowed,  abject  sabmlew  m  upon 

lh  -  part  of  the  people  to  a  tvranne-al  ohiefttin.      In  the  ra«tfU 


12  FATHER   BURKES    ANSWERS   TO   FROUDE. 

they  stood  as  freemen,  freemen  perfectly  equal  one  with  the 
other.  We  are  told  by  Gerald  Barry,  the  lying  historian,  who 
sometimes,  though  rarely,  told  the  truth,  that  when  the 
English  came  to  Ireland  nothing  astonished  them  more  than 
the^free  and  bold  manner  in  which  the  humblest  man  spoke  to 
his  chieftain,  and  the  condescending  kindness  and  spirit  ol 
equality  in  which  the  chieftain  treated  the  humblest  soldier  in 
his  tribe. 

This  was  the  ancient  Irish  constitution,  my  friends.  And, 
now,  does  this  look  anything  like  anarchy  ?  Can  it  be  said 
with  truth  of  a  land  where  the  laws  were  so  well  denned, 
where  everything  was  in  its  proper  place,  that  there  was 
anarchy?  Mr.  Froude  says:  "There  was  anarchy  there,  be- 
cause the  chieftains  were  fighting  among  themselves."  So 
they  were  ;  but  he  also  adds,  "There  was  fighting  everywhere 
in  Europe  after  the  breaking  up  of  the  Roman  Empire.'' 
Well,  Mr.  Froude,  fighting  was  going  on  everywhere;  the 
Saxons  were  fighting  the  Normans  around  them  in  England, 
and  what  right  have  you  to  say  that  Ireland,  beyond  all  other 
nations,  was  given  up  to  anarchy  because  chieftain  drew  the 
sword  against  chieftain  from  time  to  time. 

So  much  for  the  question  of  government.  Now  for  the 
question  of  religion.  The  Catholic  religion  flourished  in  Ire- 
land for  600  years  and  more  before  the  Anglo-Normans 
invaded  her  coasts.  For  the  first  300  years  that  religion  was 
the  glory  of  the  world  and  the  pride  of  God's  holy  Church. 
Ireland  for  these  300  years  was  the  island-mother  home  of 
saints  and.  of  scholars.  Men  came  from  every  country  in  the 
then  known  world  to  light  the  lamps  of  knowledge  and  ot 
sanctity  at  the  sacred  fire  upon  the  altars  of  Ireland.  Then 
came  the  Danes,  and  for  300  years  our  people  were  harassed 
by  incessant  war.  The  Danes,  as  Mr.  Froude  remarks,  appa- 
rently with  a  great  deal  of  approval,  had  no  respect  for  Christ 
or  for  religion,  and  the  first  thing  they  did  was  to  set  fire  to 
♦.he  churches  and  monasteries.  The  nuns  and  holy  monks 
were  scattered,  and  the  people  left  without  instruction. 
Through  a  time  of  war  men  don't  have  much  time  to  think  ot 
religion  or  things  of  peace,  and  for  300  years  Ireland  was 
subject  to  the  incursions  of  the  Danes.  On  Good  Friday 
morning,  in  the  year  1014,  Brian  Boroihme  defeated  the  Danes 
at  Clontarf;  but  it  was  not  until  the  23d  of  August,  1103,  in 
the  twelfth  century,  that  the  Danes  were  driven  out  of  the  land, 
oy  the  defeat  of  Magnus,  their  (?)  king,  at  (?)  Lochstranford,  in 
the  (?)  centre  of  Ireland.  The  consequence  of  these  Danish 
wars  was  that  the  Catholic  religion,  though  it  remained  in  all 


first  Lscnro.  is 

its  vital  strength,  in  all  the  purity  of  Kta  faith  amongst  the 
Irish  people,  yet  it  remained  sadly  shorn  of  that  sanctity 
which  adorned  for  the  first  -""<>  years  Irish  Christianity. 
Vices  sprung  up  amongst  the  people,  forthey  were  accustomed 
to  war!  war!  war!  night  and  day  fo*  three  centuries. 
Where  is  the  people  on  the  face  of  the  earth  that  would  not 
be  utterly  demoralized  by  fifty  wars  of  war,  much  less  'ny 
300?  The  Wars  of  the  Roses  in  England  did  not  last 
more  than  three  years,  and  they  left  the  English  people  sc 
demoralized  that  almost  without  a  struggle  they  < hanged 
their  religion  at  the  dictates  of  the  blood. thirsty  and 
tious  tyrant  Henry  VI II. 

No  sooner  was  the  Dane  gone  than  the  lri>h  people  suir,- 
moned  their  bishops  and  their  priests  to  council,  and  we  find 
almoat  every  year  alter  the  final  expulsion  of  the  Dane  $ 
council  held.  There  gathered  the  bishops, priests,  the  lea 
and  the  chieftains  of  the  laud,  the  heads  of  the  great  septs  or 
families.  There  they  made  those  laws  by  which  they  endea- 
vored to  repair  all  the  evils  of  the  Danish  invasion.  Strict 
laws  of  Christian  morality  were  enforced,  and  again  and  again 
we  find  these  councils  assembled  to  receive  a  Papal  legal  — 
Cardiual  Papero  in  the  year  1104,  live  years  before  the 
Norman  invasion.  They  invited  the  Papal  legate  to  the 
eouncil,  and  we  find  the  Irish  people  every  year  after  the 
Norman  invasion  obeying  the  laws  of  the  council  without  a 
murmur.  We  find  the  council  of  Irish  bishops  assembled, 
supported  by  the  sword  and  power  of  the  chieftains,  with  the 
Pope's  legate,  who  was  received  into  Ireland  with  open  arms 
whenever  his  master  sent  him,  without  let  or  hindrance.  When 
he  arrived  he  was  surrounded  with  all  the  devotion  and  chival- 
rous affection  which  the  Irish  have  always  paid  to  their  repre- 
sentatives of  religion  in  the  country. 

And,  my  friends,  it  is  worth  our  while  to  see  what  was  the 
^consequence  of  all  these  councils,  what  was  the  result  of  this 
great  religious  revival  which  was  taking  place  in  Ireland 
during  the  few  years  that  elapsed  between  the  last  Danish 
invasion  and  the  invasion  of  the  Normans.  We  find  three 
Irish  saints  reigning  together  in  the  Church.  We  Rl  d  Bt. 
Malaehi,  one  of  the  greatest  saints.  Primate  of  Armagh;  wo 
find  him  succeeded  by  St.  Celsus,  and,  again,  by  Gregorius, 
whose  name  is  a  name  high  up  in  the  martyrology  of  tie-  time. 
We  find  in  Dublin  St.  Lawrence  OToole,  of  glorious 
memory.  We  find  Y< ills  and  Christian.  Bishops  of  Lismwe; 
Catholicus,  of  "Down  ;  Augustin,  of  Waterford;  and  every 
man  of  the ji  famed,  not  onlv  in   Ireland,  but  throughout  th* 


14        FATHER  BURKE'S  AN6VER8  TO  FROUDE. 

whole  Church  of  God,  for  the  greatness  of  their  learning  and 
for  the  brightness  of  their  sanctity.  We  find  at  the  same 
time  Irish  monks  famous  for  their  learning  as  men  of  their 
class,  and  as  famous  for  their  sanctity.  In  the  great  IrisL 
Benedictine  Monastery  of  Ratisbon  we  find  Lawrence  and 
twelve  other  Irish  monks.  We  find,  moreover,  that  the  very 
year  before  the  Normans  arrived  in  Ireland,  in  1108,  a  great 
counsel  was  held  at  Athboy,  thirteen  thousand  Irishmen 
representing  the  nation.  Thirteen  thousand  warriors  on  horse, 
back  attended  the  council,  and  the  bishops  and  priests  wjth 
their  chiefs,  to  take  the  laws  they  made  from  them  and  hear 
whatever  the  Church  commanded  them  to  obey.  What  was 
the  result  of  all  this  1  Ah  !  my  friends,  I  am  not  speaking  from 
any  prejudiced  point  of  view.  It  has  been  said  "  that  if  Mr. 
Froude  gives  the  history  of  Ireland  from  an  outside  view,  of 
course  Father  Burke  would  have  to  give  it  from  an  inside  view." 
Now,  1  am  not  giving  it  from  an  inside  view  ;  I  am  only 
quoting  English  authorities.  I  find  that  in  this  very  interval 
between  the  Danish  and  Saxon  invasion  Lanfranc,  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  writing  to  O'Brien,  King  of  Munster,  congratu- 
lates him  on  the  religious  spirit  of  his  people.  I  find  St. 
Anselm,  one  of  the  greatest  saints  that  ever  rived,  and  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  under  William  Rufus,  writes  to  Mur- 
tagh,  King  of  Munster  :  "  I  give  thank?  to  God,"  he  sayf 
"  for  the  many  good  things  we  hear  of  your  highness,  and 
especially  for  the  profound  peace  which  the  subjects  of  youi 
realm  enjoy.  All  good  men  who  hear  this  give  thanks  to 
God  and  pray  that  he  may  grant  you  length  of  days."  The 
man  who  wrote  that  perhaps  was  thinking  while  he  was 
writing  of  the  awful  anarchy,  impiety,  and  darkness  of  the 
most  dense  and  terrible  kind  which  covered  his  own  land  of 
England  in  the  reign  of  the  Red  King  William  Rufus.  And 
yet  we  are  told,  indeed,  by  Mr.  Froude— a  good  judge  he 
seems  to  be  of  religion  ;  for  he  says  in  one  of  his  lectures-: 
"  Religion  is  a  thing  of  which  one  man  knows  as  much  as 
Eno'.her,  and  none  of  us  knows  anything  at  all" — he  tells  us 
th.it  the  Irish  were  without  religion  at  the  very  time  when  the 
Irish  Church  was  forming  itself  into  the  model  of  sanctity 
which  it  was  at  the  time  of  the  Danish  invasion,  when  Roderio 
O'Conor,  King  of  Connaught,  was  acknowledged  by  every 
prince  and  chieftain  in  the  land  to  be  the  high-king,  or  Ard 
r'ujh. 

Now,  as  far  as  regards  what  he  says — "  that  Ireland  was 
without  morality  " — I  have  but  little  to  say.  I  will  answer 
that  by  one  fact.     A  king  of  Ireland  stole  another  man's  wife 


FIRST   LKtTURI  II 

His  name — accursed! — was  Dermot  MacMurragh,  King  of 
Leiuster.  Every  chieftain  in  Ireland,  every  man,  rose  up  ji;  I 
banished  him  from  Irish  soil  as  unworthy  to  live  on  it.  If 
these  were  the  immoral  people — if  these  were  the  bestial, 
incestuous,  depraved  race  which  they  are  described  by  leading 
Norman  authorities  to  be — may  1  ask  you  might  not  King 
Dermot  turn  round  and  say:  "Why  are  you  making  war 
upon  me;  is  it  not  the  order  of  the  day  7  Have  I  not  as 
good  a  right  to  be  a  blackguard  as  anybody  else.'-'  Now 
oomes  Mr.  Froude  and  says:  "The  Normans  were  sent  to 
Ireland  to  teach  the  Ten  Commandments  to  the  Irish."  In  the 
language  of  Shaksperc  I  would  say  j  "Oh!  Jew,  I  thank 
thee  for  that  word."  In  these  Ten  Commandment!  the  three 
most  important  are,  in  their  relation  to  human  society, 
"Thou  shalt  not  steal;  thou  shalt  not  kill;  thou  shalt  nut 
covet  thy  neighbor's  wife." 

The  Normans,  even  in  Mr.  Froude's  view,  had  no  right  or 
title  under  heaven  to  one  square  inch  of  the  soil  of  Ireland. 
They  came  to  take  what  was  not  their  own,  what  they  had 
no  right  or  title  to  ;  and  they  came  as  robbers  and  thieves  to 
teach  the  Ten  Commandments  to  the  Irish  people,  amongst 
them  the  commandment,  "Thou  shalt  not  steal." 

Henry  landed  in  Ireland  in  1171.  He  was  after  murdering 
the  holy  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  St.  Thomas  a  Beoket. 
They  scattered  his  brains  before  the  foot  of  the  altar,  before 
the  Blessed  Sacrament  at  the  Vesper  hour.  The  blood  of  the 
saint  and  martyr  was  upon  his  hands  when  he  came  to 
Ireland  to  teach  the  Irish,  "Thou  shalt  not  kill."  What  was 
the  occasion  of  their  coming?  When  the  adulterer  was 
driven  from  the  sacred  soil  of  Erin  as  one  unworthy  to  pro- 
fane it  by  his  tread,  he  went  over  to  Henry,  and  procured 
from  him  a  letter  permitting  any  of  his  subjects  that  chose  to 
embark  for  Ireland  to  do  so,  and  there  to  reinstate  the  adulter- 
ous tyrant  King  Dermot  in  his  kingdom.  They  came  there 
as  protectors  and  helpers  of  adultery  to  teach  th<'  Irish  people, 
"Thou  shalt  not  covet  thy  neighbor's  wife." 

Mr.  Froude  tells  us  they  were  right,  that  they  were  the 
apostles  of  purity,  honesty,  and  clemenoy.  .Mr.  Froude 
"  it  an  honorable  man"  Ah!  but  he  says,  Remember,  my 
good  Dominican  friend,  "  that  if  they  came  to  Ireland,  they 
came  because  the  Pope  sent  them."  Henry,  in  ne  yenr  1  17  4, 
produced  a  letter,  which  he  said  he  received  from  Pope  Adrian 
IV.,  which  commissioned  himself  to  Ireland,  and  permitted 
him  there,  according  to  the  terms  of  the  letter,  to  do  whatever 
be  thought  right  and  fit  to  pn  mote  the  glory  of  God  and  th*« 


10  FATHKB   BURKE  3   ANSWERS   TO    FROCDK. 

good  of  the  people.  The  date  that  was  on  the  letter  was  1154, 
consequently  it  was  twenty  years  old.  During  the  twenty 
years  nobody  ever  heard  of  that  letter,  except  Henry,  who 
had  it  in  his  pocket,  and  an  old  man,  called  John  of  Salisbury, 
who  wrote  how  he  went  to  Rome  and  procured  the  letter  in  a 
hugger-mugger  way  from  the  Pope.  Now,  let  us  examine  this 
letter.  It  has  been  examined  by  a- better  authority  than  me. 
It  has  been  examined  by  one  who  is  here  to-night,  who  has 
brought  to  bear  upon  it  the  acumen  of  his  great  knowledge.  It 
was  dated,  according  to  Rhymer,  the  great  English  authority, 
1154.  Pope  Adrian  was  elected  Pope  the  3d  of  December, 
1154.  No  sooner  was  the  news  of  his  election  received  in 
England  than  John  of  Salisbury  was  sent  out  to  congratulate 
him  by  King  Henry,  and  to  get  this  letter.  It  must  have 
been  the  3d  of  January,  1155,  before  the  news  reached 
England  ;  for  in  those  days  no  news  could  come  to  England 
from  Rome  in  less  than  a  month.  John  of  Salisbury  set  out, 
and  it  must  have  been  another  month,  the  end  of  February  or 
the  beginning  of  March,  1155,  before  he  arrived  in  Rome,  and 
the  letter  was  dated  1154.  This  date  of  Rhymer's  was  found 
inconvenient,  wherever  he  got  it,  and  the  current  date  after- 
wards was  1155.  "But  there  was  a  copy  of  it  kept  in  the 
archives  of  Rome,  and  how  do  you  get  over  that1?"  The 
copy  had  no  date  at  all !  Now,  this  copy,  according  to 
Baronius,  had  no  date  at  all,  and,  according  to  the  Roman 
laws,  a  rescript  that  has  no  date  is  invalid,  just  so  much 
waste-paper ;  so  that  even  if  Pope  Adrian  gave  it,  it  is  worth 
nothing.  Again,  learned  authors  tell  us  that  the  existence  of 
a  document  in  the  archives  of  Rome  does  not  prove  the 
authority  of  the  document,  it  may  be  kept  there  as  a  mere 
historical  record. 

But  suppose  that  Pope  Adrian  had  given  the  letter  to 
Henry,  and  Henry  had  kept  it  so  secret  because  his  mother, 
the  Empress  Matilda,  did  not  want  him  to  act  upon  it.  Well., 
when  he  did  act  upon  it,  why  did  he  not  produce  it  ?  That 
was  the  only  warrant  on  which  he  came  to  Ireland,  invadeu 
the  country,  and  he  never  breathed  a  word  to  a  human  being 
about  that  letter.  There  is  a  lie  on  the  face  of  it !  Oh  !  Mr. 
Froude  reminded  me  "  to  remember  that  Alexander  III.,  his 
■uccessor,  mentions  that  rescript  of  Adrian's,  and  confirms 
it."  I  answer,  with  Dr.  Lynch  and  the  learned  author,  Dr. 
Moran,  of  Ossory,  and  with  many  Irish  scholars  and  historians, 
that  Alexander's  letter  is  a  forgery  as  well  as  Adrian's. 

I  grant  that  there  are  learned  men  who  admit  the  Bull  of 
Adrian    and    Alexander's   resenpt;    but    there    are   equally 


FIRST    LECTVR4.  1? 

learned  men  who  deny  that  Bull,  and  1  have  us  good  r<  asoji  to 
believe  one  as  the  other,  and  /  prefer  to  believe  it  wus  a  forgery, 

Alexander's  letter  hears  the  date  1  172,  Now, 
whether  it  is  likely  for  the  Pope  Alexander  to  give  Henry 
nidi  a  letter,  recommending  him  to  go  to  Ireland,  the  beloved 
son  of  the  Lord,  to  take  care  of  the  Church,  etc.  Remember 
it  is  said  that  Adrian  gave  the  rescript,  arid  did  not  know  the 
man  he  gave  it  to.  But  Alexander  knew  him  well  !  Henry, 
:n  1159  and  1170,  supported  the  Anti-Popes  against  Alexan- 
der, and,  according  to  Matthew  of  Westminster,  King  Henry 
II.  obliged  every  one  in  England,  from  the  boy  of  twelve 
years  of  age  to  the  old  man,  to  renounce  their  allegiance  to 
Alexander  111.,  and  go  over  to  the  Anti-Popes.  Now,  is  it 
likely  that  Alexander  would  give  him  a  rescript  telling  him 
to  go  to  Ireland  then  and  settle  ecclesiastical  mat 
Alexander  himself  wrote  to  Henry,  and  said  to  him:  "  I: 
of  remedying  the  disorders  caused  by  your  predecessors,  you 
have  added  prevarication  to  prevarication ;  you  have  op- 
pressed the  Church,  and  endeavored  to  destroy  the  canons  ol 
apostolical  men." 

Such  is  the  man  that  Alexander  sent  to  Ireland  to  make 
them  good  people.  According  to  Mr.  Froiide,  "the  Irish 
never  loved  the  Pope  until  the  Normans  taught  them."  What 
is  the  fact?  Until  the  accursed  Norman  came  to  Ireland  the 
Papal  legate  always  came  to  the  land  at  his  pleasure.  Nc 
king  ever  obstructed  him ;  no  Irish  hand  was  ever  raised 
against  a  bishop,  priest  of  the  land,  or  Papal  legate.  After 
the  first  legate,  Cardinal  Vivian,  passed  over  to  England, 
Henry  took  him  by  the  throat  and  made  him  .swear  that  when 
he  went  to  Ireland  he  would  do  nothing  against  the  interests 
of  the  king.  It  was  an  unheard-of  thing  that  archbishops  and 
cardinals  should  be  persecuted  until  the  Normans  taught  the 
world  how  to  do  it  with  their  accursed  feudal  system,  con- 
centrating all  power  in  the  king. 

Ah!  bitterly  did  Lawrence  OToole  feel  it,  the  great  heroic 
saint  of  Ireland,  when  he  wevA  to  England  <'ii  his  last  ravage 
The  moment  he  arrived  in  England  the  kind's  officers  made 
him  prisoner.  The  king  left  orders  that  he  was  never  t"  -  t 
foot  in  Ireland  again. 

It  was  this  man  that  was  Bent  over  as  an  apostle  of  morality 
to  Ireland;  he  who  was  the  man  accuse,)  of  violating  the 
betrothed  wife  of  his  own  son,  Richard  I.;  a  man  \s  ho>e 
crimes  will  not  bear  repetition-,  a  man  who  was  believed  by 
Europe,  to  be  possessed  of  the  devil;  a  man  of  hIm;.  it  is 
written   "that  when  he  got  into  a  fit  of  anger  he  tore  oil  bis 


18  FATHER   BUKK.E'8   ANSWEBS   TO   FKOUDK. 

clothes  and  sat  naked,  chewing  straw  like  a  beast."  Further, 
more,  is  it  likely  that  a  Pope  who  knew  him  so  well,  who 
suffered  so  much  from  him,  would  have  sent  him  to  Ireland — 
the  murderer  of  bishops,  the  robber  of  churches,  the  destroyer 
of  ecclesiastical  liberty,  and  every  form  of  liberty  that  came 
before  him.  No !  I  never  will  believe  that  the  Pope  of 
Rome  was  so  very  short-sighted,  so  unjust,  as  by  a  stroke  of 
his  pen  to  abolish  and  destroy  the  liberties  of  the  most  faithful 
people  who  ever  bowed  down  in  allegiance  to  him. 

But  let  us  suppose  that  Pope  Adrian  gave  the  Bull.  I  hold 
still  it  was  of  no  account,  because  it  was  obtained  under  false 
pretences  ;  for  he  told  the  Pope,  "  The  Irish  are  in  a  state  of 
miserable  existence,"  which  did  not  exist.  Secondly,  he  told 
a  lie,  an<?  according  to  the  Roman  law,  a  Papal  rescript 
obtained  on  a  lie  was  null  and  void.  Again,  when  Henry 
told  the  Pope,  when  he  gave  him  that  rescript  and  power  to 
go  to  Ireland,  that  he  would  fix  everything  right,  and  do 
everything  for  the  ^ory  of  God  and  the  good  of  the  people, 
he  had  no  intention  of  doing  it,  and  never  did  it ;  consequently, 
the  rescript  was  null  and  void. 

But  suppose  the  rescript  was  valid.  Well,  my  friends, 
what  power  did  it  give  Henry  1  Did  it  give  him  the  land  of 
Ireland  ?  Not  a  bit  of  it.  All  it  was  that  the  Pope  said  was, 
"  I  give  you  power  to  enter  Ireland,  there  to  do  what  is  neces- 
sary for  the  glory  of  God  and  the  good  of  the  people."  At 
most,  he  said  he  wished  of  the  Irish  chieftains  to  acknowledge 
his  hi<*h  sovereignty  over  the  land.  Now.  you  must  know 
that  in  these  early  Middle  Ages  there  were  two  kinds  of  sov. 
ereignty.  There  was  a  sovereignty  that  ruled  the  people  and 
the  land,  the  king  governing  these,  as  the  kings  and  empe- 
rors do  in  Europe  to-day.  Besides  this,  there  was  a  sovereign- 
ty which  required  the  homage  only  of  the  chieftains  of  the 
laud,  but  which  left  them  in  perfect  liberty  and  in  perfect  in- 
dependence. The  latter  demanded  a  nominal  tribute  of  their 
homage  and  worship,  and  nothing  more.  This  was  all  evi- 
dently that  the  Pope  of  Rome  claimed  in  Ireland,  if  he  permit- 
ted so  much ;  and  the  proof  of  it  here  lies,  that  when  Henr\ 
II.  came  to  Ireland  he  did  not  claim  of  the  Irish  kings  that 
they  should  give  up  their  sovereignty.  He  left  Roderio 
O'Conor,  King  of  Connaught,  acknowledging  him  as  a  fellow- 
king  ;  he  acknowledged  his  royalty,  and  confirmed  him  when 
he  demanded  of  him  the  allegiance  and  the  homage  of  a  feu- 
dal prince,  a  feudal  sovereign,  leaving  him  in  perfect  inde- 
pendence. 

Again,  let  us  suppose  that  Henry  intended  to  conquer  Ire- 


riUST    LECTl'EE.  19 

laud  and  bring  it  into  slavery  ;  did  he  Buooeed  .'  Was  then 
a  conquest  at  all  ?  Nothing  Like  it.  He  came  to  Ireland,  and 
the  kings  and  princes  of  the  Irish  people  said  to  him  ;  ••  Well, 
we  are  willing  to  acknowledge  your  high  sovereignty;  you 
are  the  Lord  of  Ireland,  but  we  are  the  owners  of  the  land. 
It  is  simply  acknowledging  your  title  as  Lord  ot  Ireland, 
nothing  more."  It' he  intended  anything  mure,  he  never  car- 
ried out  his  intention  ;  he  was  able  to  conquer  that  portion 
which  was  held  before  by  the  Danes,  but  cot  outside.  It 
is  a  tact  that  when  the  Irish  had  driven  the  Danes  out  of  Ire- 
land at  Clontarf,  as  they  were  always  straightforward  and 
generous  in  the  hour  of  their  triumph,  they  permitted  the 
Danes  to  remain  in  Dublin,  Wexford,  Wicklow,  and  \\  ater- 
ford,  and  from  the  Hill  of  Bowtfa  to  Waterford.  The  con- 
sequence was  that  the  whole  eastern  shore  of  Ireland  was  [q 
the  possession  of  the  Danes.  The  Normans  came  over,  and 
were  regarded  by  the  Irish  as  cousins  to  the  Danes,  and  only 
took  the  Danish  territory  and  nothing  more;  and  they  were 
willing  to  share  with  them.  Therefore  there  was  no  i 
now  for  Mr.  Froude's  second  justification  of  these  most 
iniquitous  acts,  that  Ireland  was  a  prey  to  the  Danes.  He 
says  the  Danes  came  to  the  laud  and  made  the  Irish  people 
ferocious,  and  leaves  his  hearers  to  infer  that  the  Danish  wars 
in  Ireland  were  only  a  succession  of  individual  and  ferocious 
contests  between  tribe  and  tribe,  and  between  man  and  roan  ; 
whereas  they  were  a  magnificent  trial  of  strength  between  two 
of  the  greatest  and  strongest  nations  that  ever  met  foot  to  foot 
or  hand  to  hand  on  a  battle-field.  The  Danes  were  uncon- 
querable. 

The  Celt  for  300  years  fought  with  them,  and  disputed  every 
inch  of  the  land  with  th  mi,  tilled  every  valley  in  the  land  with 
their  dead  bodies,  and  in  the  end  drove  them  back  into  the 
.North  Sea  and  freed  his  native  land  from  their  domination. 
This  magnificent  contest  is  represented  by  this  historian  as  a 
mere  ferocious  onslaught,  daily  renewed,  between  man  and 
man  in  Ireland.  The  Normans  arrived,  and  we  have  seen 
how  they  were  received.  Th  •  Butlers  and  Fitzgeralds  went 
down  into  Kildare,  the  De  Berminghann  and  Burkes  went 
down  into  Connaught.  The  people  offered  them  wry  little 
opposition,  gave  them  a  portion  of  their  lands,  and  welcomed 
them  amongst  them;  they  began  to  love  them  as  if  they  wero 
their  own  flesh  and  blood.  But,  my  friends,  these  Normans, 
so  haughty  in  England,  who  despised  th.'  Saxons  bo  bitterly 
that  their  name  for  the  Saxon  was  -villein."  or  churL  who 
would  not  allow  a  Saxon  to  sit  at  the  same   table   with  thorn 


20  FATHER    BURKi.  S    ANSWERS    TO    *ROUl>E- 

who  never  thought  of  intermarrying  with  the  Saxons  for  many 
long  years ;  the  proud  Norman,  ferocious  in  his  passions, 
brave  as  a  lion,  formed  by  his  Crusades  and  Saracenic  wars 
the  bravest  warrior  of  his  times,  this  steel-clad  knight  dis- 
dained the  Saxon.  Even  one  of  their  followers,  Gerald  Barry, 
speaking  of  the  ISaxons,  says:  "I  am  a  Welshman.  Who 
would  think  of  comparing  the  Welsh  with  the  Saxon  boors, 
the  basest  race  on  the  lace  of  the  earth.  They  fought  one 
battle,  and  when  the  Normans  conquered  them  they  consented 
to  be  slaves  for  evermore.  Who  would  compare  them  with 
the  Welsh,  the  Celtic  race,"  says  this  man,  "  with  the  brave, 
intellectual;  and  magnanimous  race  of  the  Celts'?"  Now,  my 
friends,  when  these  Normans  went  down  into  Ireland  amongst 
the  Irish  people,  wrent  out  from  the  Danish  portion  of  the  pale, 
what  is  the  first  thing  that  Ave  see  ?  They  threw  off  their 
Norman  traits,  forgot  their  Norman-French  language,  and  took 
to  the  Irish,  took  Irish  wives,  and  were  glad  to  get  them,  and 
adopted  Irish  customs,  until  in  200  years  after  the  Norman 
invasion  we  find  that  these  proud  descendants  of  William 
Fitz  Adhelm,  the  Earls  of  Clauricarde,  changed  their  names 
to  Mac  William  Burkes  oughter  and  eeghter  (or  the  upper  and 
lower  sons  of  William)  in  the  time  of  Lionel,  Duke  of  Clar- 
ence; and  as  they  called  themselves  by  the  name,  so  they 
adopted  the  language  and  customs  of  the  country.  During  the 
four  hundred  sad  years  that  followed  the  Norman  invasion 
down  to  the  accession  of  Henry  VIII.,  Mr.  Froude  has  nothing 
to  say  but  that  Ireland  was  in  a  constant  state  of  anarchy  and 
confusion,  and  it  is  too  true.  It  is  perfectly  true.  Chieftain 
against  chieftain  !  It  was  comparative  peace  before  the  inva- 
sion, but  when  the  Normans  came  in  they  drew  them  on  by 
craft  and  cunning.  The  ancient  historian  Strabo  says  :  "  The 
Gauls  always  march  openly  to  their  end,  and  they  are  there- 
fore easily  circumvented."  So  when  the  Normans  came  and 
the  Saxons,  they  sowed  dissensions  among  the  people,  they 
stirred  them  up  against  each  other,  and  the  bold,  hot  blood  of 
the  Celt  was  always  ready  to  engage  in  contest  and  in  Avar. 
What  was  the  secret  of  that  incessant  and  desolating  war  1 
There  is  no  history  more  painful  to  read  than  the  history  of 
the  Irish  people  from  the  day  that  the  Norman  landed  on  their 
coast  until  the  day  when  the  great  issue  of  Protestanism  was 
put  before  the  nation,  and  when  Irishmen  rallied  in  that  great 
day  as  one  man.  My  friends,  the  true  secret  is  that  early 
and  constant  effort  of  the  English  to  force  upon  Ireland  the 
feudal  system,  and  consequently  to  rob  the  Irish  of  every  inch 
of  their  land  and  to  exterminate  the  Celtic  race.     I  lay  this 


FIIIST    LKC  ITRE.  21 

down  as  the  one  secret,  the  one  thread,  by  which  you  may 
unravel  the  tangled  skein  of  our  history  fur  the  WO  years  that 
followed  the  Norman  invasion.     The  Normans  and  the  S 
came  with  the  express  purpose  and  design  of  taking  ,v,  • 

of  land  in  Ireland  ami  exterminating  the  Celtic  race.  It"  is  an 
awful  thing  to  think  of,  but  we  base  evidence  for  it.  b'irsl  •  i 
ail,  Henry  II.,  whilst  lie  made  bis  treaties  with  the  Irish  kin" 
secretly  divided  the  whole  of  Ireland  into  ten  portions,  and 
allowed  each  of  these  portions  to  one  of  his  Norman  knights. 
In  a  word,  he  robbed  the  Irish  people  and  the  Irish  chieftains 
of  ever)  single  foot  of  land  i„  the  Irish  territory.  It  - 
they  were  not  able  to  take  possession.     It  is  as  if  a  i 

robber  were  to  divide  the  booty   before    it    is    taken.      It    is   far 

easier  to  assign  property  not  yet  Btolen  than  to  pul  the  th 
in  possession  ut  it.  There  were  Irish  hands  and  Irish  battle- 
blades  in  the  way  for  many  a  long  year,  nor  has  it  been 
accomplished  to  this  day.  In  order  to  loot  out  the  Celtic  race 
and  to  destroy  us,  mark  the  measures  of  legislation  which 
followed. 

First  of  all,  my  friends,  whenever  an  Englishman  was  put 
in  possession  of  an  acre  of  land  he  got  the  right  to  trespass 
upon  his  Irish  neighbors,  and  to  take  their  land  as  far  as  he 
could,  and  they  had  no  action  in  a  courl  of  law  to  recover  their 
land.  If  an  Irishman  brought  an  action  at  law  against  an 
Englishman  for  taking  half  of  his  held  or  for  trespassing  upon 
his  land,  according  to  the  law  from  the  very  beginning,  that 
Irishman  was  sent  out  of  court,  there  «;is  no  action,  the 
Englishman  was  perfectly  justified.  Worse  than  this,  they 
made  hiws  declaring  that  the  killing  of  an  Irishman  was  no 
felony.  Sir  John  Davis  tells  us  how.  upon  a  certain  occasion 
at  the  assizes  of  Waterford,  in  the  -JlMh  of  Edward  I., a  certain 
Thomas  Butler  brought  an  action  ngainsl  Robcrl  de  Almavto 
recover  certain  goods  that  Roberl  had  stolen  from  him.  The 
case  was  brought  into  court.  Robert  acknowledged  that  he 
had  stolen  the" goods,  that  he  was  a  thief.  The  defence  that 
he  put  in  was  that  Thomas,  the  man  he  had  plundered,  was  Oft 
Irishman.  The  case  was  tried.  Now,  my  friends,  just  think 
of  it!  The  issue  that  was  put  before  the  jury  was  whether 
Tliomast,  /he  plaintiff,  was  an  Irishman  <>r  <n>  Englishman  t 
Robert,  the  thief,  was  obliged  t..  give  lack  the  goods,  for  the 
jury  found  Thomas  was  an  Englishman.  Hut  if  the  jury 
found  that  Thomas  was  an  Irishman,  he  might  go  without  the 
goods  there  was  no  action  against  him.     We   find  upon  the 

same    authority,   Sir  John    Davis,   a   description    "f  a    certain 
occasion  at  Waterford    where  a  man  named    Robert    WeNh 


22        FATHER  BUEKk'8  ANSWERS  TO  FEOUDE. 

killed  an  Irishman.  He  was  arraigned  and  tried  for  man- 
slaughter,  and  he,  without  the  slightest  difficulty,  acknowledged 
it.  °«  Yes,  1  did  kill  him  ;  you  cannot  try  me  for  it,  for  he 
was  an  Irishman."  Instantly  he  was  let  out  of  the  dock,  on 
condition,  as  the  Irishman  was  in  the  service  at  the  time  of  an 
Eaglish  master,  ho  should  pay  whatever  he  compelled  him  to 
pay  for  the  loss  of  his  services,  and  the  murderer  might  go 
scot  free.  "  Not  only,"  says  Sir  John  Davis,  "were  the  Irish 
considered  aliens,  but  they  were  considered  enemies,  insomuch 
that  though  an  Englishman  might  settle  upon  an  irishman's  land 
there  was  no  redress,  but  if  an  Irishman  wished  to  buy  an 
acre  of  land  from  an  Englishman,  he  could  not  do  it.  So  they* 
kept  the  land  they  had,  and  they  were  always  adding  to  it  by 
plunder ;  they  could  steal  without  ever  buying  any.  If  any 
man  made  a  will  and  left  an  acre  of  land  to  an  Irishman,  the 
moment  it  was  proved  that  he  was  an  Irishman  the  land  was 
forfeited  to  the  Crown  of  England,  even  if  it  was  only  left  in 
trust  to  him,  as  we  have  two  very  striking  examples.  We 
read  that' a  certain  James  Butler  left  some  lands  in  Meath  in 
trust  for  charitable  purposes,  and  he  left  them  to  his  two 
chaplains.  It  was  proved  that  the  two  priests  were  Irishmen, 
and  that  it  was  left  to  them  in  trust  for  charitable  purposes  ; 
yet  the  land  was  forfeited  because  the  two  men  were  Irishmen. 
Later,  on  a  certain  occasion,  Mrs.  Catharine  Dowdall,  a  pious 
woman,  made  a  will,  leaving  some  land,  also  for  charitable 
purposes,  to  her  chaplain,  and  the  land  was  forfeited  because 
the  priest  was  an  Irishman.  In  the  year  1367,  Lionel,  third 
son  of  Edward  111.,  Duke  of  Clarence,  came  to  Ireland,  held  a 
parliament,  and  passed  certain  laws  in  Kilkenny.  You  will 
scarcely  believe  what  I  am  going  to  tell  you.  Some  of  them 
were  as  follows  :  "  If  any  man  speak  the  Irish  language,  or 
keep  company  with  the  Irish,  or  adopt  Irish  customs,  his 
lands  shall  be  taken  from  him  and  forfeited  to  the  Crown  of 
England."  "  If  any  Englishman  married  an  Irishwoman," 
what  do  you  think  was  the  penalty  ?  He  was  sentenced  to 
be  half  hanged,  to  have  his  heart  cut  out  before  he  was  dead, 
and  to  have  his  head  struck  off,  and  every  right  to  his  land 
passed  to  the  Crown  of  England.  "Thus,"  says  Sir  John 
Davis,  "it  is  evident  that  the  constant  design  of  English 
legislation  iii  Ireland  was  to  possess  the  best  Irish  lands  and 
to  extirpate  and  exterminate  the  Irish  people." 

Citizens  of  America,  Mr.  Froude  came  here  to  appeal  to 
you  for  your  verdict,  and  he  asks  you  to  say,  Was  not  Eng- 
land justified  in  her  treatment  of  Ireland  because  the  Irish 
people  would  not  submit  ?     Now,  citizens  of  America,  would 


FIRST    LECTURK.  23 

not  the  Irish  people  he  the  \  Host  dogs  on  the  face  of  the  i 

if  they  Bubmitted  to  such  treatment  us  this!     Would  the)   be 

worthy  of  the  name  of  men  if  they  submitted  t<-  he  robbed, 

plundered,  and  degraded  ?  It  is  true  that  in  all  this  1.  . 
tioii  we  see  this  same  spirit  of  contempt  of  which  I  >j ■ 
the  beginning  of  my  lecture.  But,  remember,  it  was  these 
Saxon  churls  that  were  thus  despised,  ami  ask  yourselves  what 
race  they  treated  with  so  much  contumely,  ami  attempted  in 
every  way  to  degrade,  whilst  they  were  ruining  and  robbing. 
Gerald  Barry,  the  liar,  speaking  of  the  Irish  raoe,  said  : 
"The  Irish  came  from  the  grandest  race  thai  he  knew  of  00 
this  side  of  the  world,  and  there  an?  no  better  people  under 
the  sun."  By  the  word  "  better"  he  meant  more  valiant  and 
more  intellectual.  Those  who  came  over  from  England  were 
called  Saxon  "  hogs,"  or  churls,  while  the  Irish  called  them 
Buddagh  Sas.senach.  These  were  the  men  who  showed  in  the 
very  system  by  which  they  were  governed  that  they  could 
not  understand  the  nature  of  a  people  who  refused  to  be 
slaves.  They  were  slaves  themselves.  Consider  the  history 
of  the  feudal  system  under  which  they  lived.  According  to 
the  feudal  system  of  government  the  king  of  England  was 
lord  of  every  inch  of  land  in  England;  every  foot  of  land  in 
England  was  the  king's,  and  the  nobles  who  had  the  land  held 
it  from  the  king,  and  held  it  under  feudal  conditions  the  most 
degrading  that  can  be  imagined.  For  instance,  it'  a  man  died 
and  left  his  heir,  a  son  or  daughter,  under  age,  the  heir  ,,r 
heiress,  together  with  the  estate,  went  into  the  hands  of  the 
king.  He  might,  perhaps,  leave  a  widow  with  ten  children  ; 
she  would  have  to  support  all  the  children  herself  out  of  her 
dower,  but  the  estate  and  the  eldest  son  or  the  eldest  daughter 
went  into  the  hands  of  the  king.  Then,  during  their  minority, 
the  king  could  spend  the  revenues  or  could  sell  the  castle  and 
sell  the  estate  without  being  questioned  by  any  one;  and 
when  the  son  or  daughter  came  of  age,  he  then  sold  them  in 
marriage  to  the  highest  bidder.  We  have  Godfrey  ofMande- 
ville  buying  for  twenty  thousand  marks  from  King  John  the 
hand  of  Isabella,  Countess  of  Gloucester;     We  have  babeTIa 

de   Linjera,    another    heiress,    offering   two   hundred    marks    t  > 
King   John — for   what  '. — for    liberty    to    marry    whoever    she 

liked,  and  not  to  be  obliged  to  marry  'he  man  he  would  L'i^c 

her.      If  a  widow  lost  her  husband,  tip'  moment  the  breath  was 
out  of  him  the    lady  and    the  estate  were    in    the    possession  of 

the  kiiiLr.  and  he  might  squander  the  estal •  do  whatever  he 

liked  with  it.  and    then    he  could  sell    the  woman.      We  have  ■ 
curious  example  of  this.      Wo  have  Alice,  Countess  of  Wi:- 


24        FATHER  BURKe's  ANSWERS  TO  FROUDE. 

wick,  paying  King  John  one  thousand  pounds  sterling  in  gold 
fur  leave  to  remain  a  widow  as  long  as  she  liked,  and  then  to 
marry  any  one  she  liked.  This  was  the  slavery  called  the 
feudal  system,  of  which  Mr.  Eroude  is  so  proud,  and  of  which 
he  says,  "  It  lay  at  the  root  of  all  that  is  noble  and  good  in 
Europe."  The  Irish  could  not  understand  it,  small  blame  to 
them  !  But  when  the  Irish  people  found  that  they  were  to  be 
hunted  down  like  wolves — found  their  lands  were  to  be  taken 
from  them,  and  that  there  was  no  redress — over  and  over  again 
the  Irish  people  sent  up  petitions  to  the  King  of  England  to 
give  them  the  benefit  of  the  English  law  and  they  would  be 
amenable  to  it,  but  they  were  denied  and  told  that  they  should 
remain  as  they  were — that  is  to  say,  England  was  determined 
to  extirpate  them  and  get  every  foot  of  Irish  soil.  This  is  the 
one  leading  idea  or  principle  which  animates  England  in  her 
treatment  of  Ireland  throughout  those  four  hundred  years,  and 
it  is  the  only  clue  you  can  find  to  that  turmoil  and  misery  and 
constant  fighting  which  was  going  on  in  Ireland  during  that 
time.  Sir  James  Cusick,  the  English  commissioner  sent 
over  by  Henry  VIII.,  wrote  to  his  majesty  these  quaint  words  : 
"  The  Irish  be  of  opinion  amongst  themselves  that  the  English 
wish  to  get  all  their  land  and  to  root  th^m  out  completely." 
He  just  struck  the  nail  on  the  head.  Mr.  Froude  himself 
acknowledges  that  the  land  question  lies  at  the  root  of  the 
whole  business.  Nay,  more,  the  feudal  system  would  have 
handed  over  every  inch  of  land  in  Ireland  to  the  Norman 
king  and  his  Norman  nobles,  and  the  O'Briens,  the  O'Tooles, 
the  O'Donnells,  and  the  O'Conors  were  of  more  ancient  and 
better  blood  than  that  of  William,  the  bastard  Norman. 

The  Saxon  might  submit  to  feudal  law  and  be  crushed  into 
a  slave,  a  clod  of  the  earth;  the  Celt  never  would.  England's 
great  mistake — in  my  soul  I  am  convinced  that  the  great 
mistake,  of  all  others  the  greatest — lay  in  this,  that  the 
English  people  never  realized  the  fact  that  in  dealing  with  the 
Irish  they  had  to  deal  with  the  proudest  race  upon  the 
face  of  the  earth.  During  these  wars  the  Norman  earls, 
the  Ormonds,  the  Desmonds,  the  Geraldines,  the  Do  Burghs, 
were  at  the.  head  and  front  of  every  rebellion  ;  the  English 
complained  of  them,  and  said  they  were  worse  than  the  Irish 
rebels,  constantly  stirring  up  disorders.  Do  you  know  the 
reason  why?  Because  they  as  Normans  were  under  the 
feudal  law,  and  therefore  the  king's  sheriff  would  come  down 
on  them  at  every  turn  with  fines  and  forfeitures  of  the  land 
held  from  the  king;  so  by  keeping  the  country  in  disorder 
they  were  always  able  to  be  sheriffs,  and  they  preferred  the 


FIRST   LBCTLRK.  2fl 

Irish   freedom    to    the    English    feudalism;    theiefore    they 

fomented  and  kept  up  these  discords.  It  was  the  boast  <>i' 
my  kinsmen  of  Clanriearde  that,  with  the  blessing  of  »>•"), 
they  would  never  allow  a  king's  writ  to  run  in  Ccnnaught. 
Dealing  with  this  period  in  our  history,  Mr.  Froude  sa\  - 
the  Irish  chieftains  and  their  septs,  or  tribes,  were  doing  this 
or  that,  the  Geraldines,  the  Desmonds,  and  tin-  Ormonds.  1 
say:  "Slowly,  Mr.  Froude!  that  the  Geraldines  and  the 
Ormonds  were  not  the  Irish  people;  so  don't  father  their 
acta  upon  the  Irish;  the  Irish  chieftains  have  enough  to 
answtr  for."  During  these  four  hundred  years  I  prob 
you  that,  in  this  most  melancholy  period  of  our  sal  history,  I 
have  found  but  two  cases,  two  instances  that  cheer  me,  ami 
both  were  the  action  of  Irish  chieftains.  In  one  we  find  that 
Turlough  O'Conor  put  away  his  wife;  she  was  one  of  the 
O'Briens.  Theobald  Burke,  one  of  the  Earls  of  Clanriearde, 
lived  with  the  woman.  With  the  spirit  of  their  heroic 
ancestors,  the  Irish  chieftains  of  Connaught  came  together, 
deposed  him  and  drove  him  out  of  the  place.  Later  on  we 
find  another  chieftain,  Brian  McMahon,  who  induced  O'Donnell, 
chief  of  the  Hebrides,  to  put  away  his  lawful  wife  and  marry 
a  daughter  of  his  own.  The  following  year  they  fell  out,  and 
McMahon  drowned  his  own  son-in-law.  The  chiefs,  O'Di  innell 
and  O'Neill,  came  together  with  their  forces  and  d.posed 
McMahon  in  the  cause  of  virtue,  honor,  and  womanhood.  1 
have  looked  in  vain  throngh  these  four  hundred  years  for  one 
single  trait  of  generosity  or  of  the  assertion  of  virtu. •  amongst 
the  Anglo-Norman  chiefs,  and  the  dark  picture  is  only  relieved 
by  these  two  gleams  of  Irish  patriotism  and  Irish  zeal  in  the 
cause  of  virtue,  honor,  and  purity. 

Now,  my  friends,  Mr.  Froude  opened  another  question  in 
his  first  lecture.  lb-  said  that  all  this  time,  while  the  English 
monarchs  were  engaged  in  trying  to  subjugate  Scotland  and 
subdue  their  French  provinces,  the  lri>h  were  rapidly  gaining 
ground,  coming  in  and  entering  the  pale  year  by  year;  the 
English  power  in  Ireland  was  in  danger  of  annihilation,  and 
the  only  thing  that  saved  it  was  the  love  of  the  Irish  for  their 
own  independent  way  was  of  lighting,  which,  though  favorable 
to  freedom,  was  hostile  to  national  unity.  lie  says,  speakins 
of  that  time,  "  Would  it  not  have  been  better  to  have  allowed 
the  Irish  chieftains  to  govern  their  own  people  ?  Freedom  to 
whom  ?  Freedom  to  the  bad,  to  the  violent— it  is  no  freedom." 
I  deny  that  the  Irish  chieftains,  with  all  their  faults,  were,  as  a 
class,  bad  men  or  violent.  I  deny  that  they  were  engaged,  as 
Mr.  Froude  says,  in  cutting  their  people's  throats,  that  they 


16  FATHER   MJKKE'S    ANSWERS   TO    FROUDS. 

were  a  people  who  would  never  be  satisfied.  Mr.  Fioude 
tells  us  emphatically  and  significantly  that  the  "  Irish  people 
were  satisfied  with  their  chieftains";  but  people  are  not 
satisfied  under  a  system  where  their  throats  are  being  cut. 
The  Irish  chieftains  were  the  bane  of  Ireland  by  their  divisions ; 
the  Irish  chieftains  were  the  ruin  of  their  country  by  their 
want  of  union  and  want  of  generous  acquiescence  to  some 
great  and  noble  head  that  would  cave  them  by  uniting  them ; 
the  Irish  chieftains,  even  in  the  days  of  the  heroic  Edward 
Bruce,  did  not  rally  around  him  as  they  ought.  In  their 
divisions  is  the  secret  of  Ireland's  slavery  and  ruin  through 
those  years.  But,  with  all  that,  history  attests  that  they  were 
still  magnanimous  enough  to  be  the  fathers  of  their  people, 
and  to  be  the  natural  leaders,  as  God  intended  them  to  be, 
of  their  septs,  families,  and  namesakes.  And  they  struck 
whatever  blow  they  did  strike  in  what  they  imagined  to  be 
the  cause  of  right,  justice,  and  principle,  and  the  only  blow 
that  came  in  the  cause  of  outraged  honor  and  purity  came 
from  the  hand  of  the  Irish  chiefs  in  those  dark  and  dreadful 
years. 

I  will  endeavor  to  follow  this  learned  gentleman  in  his 
subsequent  lectures.  Now  a  darker  cloud  than  that  of  mere 
invasion  is  lowering  over  Ireland ;  now  comes  the  demon  of 
religious  discord,  the  sword  of  religious  persecution  waving 
over  the  distracted  and  exhausted  land.  And  we  shall  see 
whether  this  historian  has  entered  into  the  spirit  of  the  great 
contest  that  followed,  and  that  in  our  day  has  ended  in  a 
glorious  victory  for  Ireland's  Church  and  Ireland's  nationality, 
and  which  will  be  followed  as  assuredly  by  a  still  more  glori- 
ous future 


SECOND   LECTURE. 

DELIVERED   IN  THB  ACADEMY   OP  MUSIC,  NEW    YORK,  NOVKMBU* 
U,  1872. 


Ladies  and  Gentlemen  : 

We  now  come  to  consider  the  second  lecture  of  the  eminent 
English  historian  who  has  come  among  us.  It  covers  one  ol 
the  most  interesting  and  terrible  passages  in  our  history,  and 
takes  in  three  reigns — the  reign  of  Henry  VIII..  the  reign  ol 
Elizabeth,  and  the  reign  of  James  1.  1  scarcely  con- 
sider the  reign  of  Edward  VI.,  or  of  Philip  and  Mary,  worth 
counting  Mr.  Eroude  began  his  second  lecture  with  a  rathei 
startling  paradox.  He  asserted  that  Henry  VJIL  was  a  hater 
of  disorder.  Now,  my  friends,  every  man  in  this  world  has 
his  hero  ;  and,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  every  man  selects 
some  character  out  of  history  that  he  admires  until  at  length, 
by  continually  dwelling  on  the  virtues  and  excellences  ol  his 
hero,  he  comes  to  almost  worship  him.  From  among  the 
grand  historic  names  written  in  the  world's  annals  every  man 
is  free  to  select  whom  he  likes  best,  and  using  this  privilege, 
Mr  Froude  has  made  the  most  singular  selection  ol  winch  you 
or  i  ever  heard.  His  hero  is  Henry  VIII.  It  Bpeaks  volumes 
for  the  integrity  of  Mr.  Eroude's  own  mind.  It  is  a  strong 
argument  that  he  possesses  a  charity  most  sublime 
that  he  is  enabled  to  discover  virtues  in  the  historical  character 
of  one  of  the  greatest  monsters  that  ever  cursed  the  earth. 
But  he  has  succeeded  in  this,  to  us,  apparent  impossibility,  and 
discovered,  among  other  shining  virtues,  in  the  character  ol 
the  English  Nero  a  great  love  for  order  and  hatred  ol  disorder. 
Well,  we  must  stop  at  the  very  first  sentence  of  the  \<  arned 
gentleman  and  enquire  how  much  truth  thereia  In  it.  and  how 
much  only  a  figment  of  imagination.  All  »rder4n  the  state  is 
based  on  three  grand  principles,  my  frienda  :  Brat,  the  aupw  macy 
of  the  law;   second,    respect  for  liberty   of   ensconce;  and 

third  a  tender  icgard  for  that  which  lies  at  the  foundation  of 
all  human  society— namely,  the  sanctity  of  the  marriage  tie. 
The  first  element  of  order  iu  every  state  is  the  supremacy 

of  the  law,  for  in  this  lies  the  very  quintessence    ol    human 
87 


2b  FAIHEB    BURKE'S    ANSWERS   TO    FRODDE. 

freedom  and  of  order.  The  law  is  supposed  to  be,  according 
to  th^  definition  of  Aquinas,  "  the  judgment  pronounced  by  pro- 
found reason  and  intellect,  thinking  and  legislating  for  the 
public  good.'  The  law  is  therefore  the  expression  of  reason 
— reason  backed  by  authority,  reason  influenced  by  the  noble 
motive  of  the  public  good.  This  being  the  nature  of  law,  the 
very  first  thing  that  is  demanded  for  the  law  is  that  every  man 
shall  bow  down  to  it  and  obey  it.  No  man  in  any  community 
has  any  right  to  claim  exemption  from  obedience  to  the  law, 
least  of  all  the  man  at  the  head  of  the  community,  because  he 
is  supposed  to  represent  the  nation  and  nation's  spirit,  and  to 
give  to  the  people  an  example  of  virtue  and  of  obedience  to 
the  law.  Was  Henry  VIII.  an  upholder  of  the  law?  was  ho 
obedient  to  England's  law  ]  I  deny  it,  and  I  have  the  evi- 
dence of  history  to  back  me  in  that  denial,  and  to  prove  that 
Henry  VIII.  was  one  of  the  greatest  enemies  of  freedom 
and  law  that  ever  lived  in  this  world,  and  consequently  one  of 
the  greatest  tyrants.  1  shall  only  give  one  example  out  of  ten 
thousand  which  might  be  taken  from  the  history  of  the  time. 
When  Henry  VIII.  broke  with  the  Pope,  he  called  upon 
his  subjects  to  acknowledge  him  (bless  the  mark  !)  as  the 
spiritual  head  of  the  Church.  There  were  three  abbots  of  three 
Charter-houses  in  London — the  Abbot  of  London,  the  Abbot 
of  Asciolum,  and  the  Abbot  Belaval.  These  three  abbots  re- 
fused to  acknowledge  Henry  as  the  supreme  spiritual  head  of 
the  Church.  They  were  arrested  and  held  for  trial,  and  a  jury 
of  twelve  citizens  was  impanelled  to  try  them.  The  first 
principle  of  English  law,  the  grand  palladium  of  English  legisla- 
tion and  freedom,  is  the  perfect  liberty  of  a  jury.  A  jury 
must  be  free  not  only  from  coercion,  but  from  prejudice  and 
prejudgment.  A  jury  must  be  impartial,  and  tree  to  record 
the  verdict  at  which  their  impartial  judgment  has  arrived. 
Those  twelve  men  refused  to  convict  the"  three  abbots  of  high 
treason.  Their  decision  was  grounded  on  this,  it  has  never 
been  known  in  England  that  it  was  high  treason  to  deny  the 
spiritual  supremacy  of  the  king.  Henry  sent  word  to  the 
jury  that  if  they  did  not  find  the  accused  guilty  he  would  visit 
upon  the  jury,  the  penalties  which  he  had  intended  for  the  ab- 
bots. Thus  did  he  defy  the  rights  guaranteed  to  the  English 
people  in  the  charter  of  England's  liberties,  the  Magna  Charta, 
and  trample  upon  the  first  grand  element  of  English  jurisprud- 
ence— the  liberty  of  the  jury.  Citizens  of  America,  would 
any  of  you  like  to  be  tried  for  treason  by  twelve  men  of  whom 
the  President  of  the  United  States  had  said  that  they  must 
find  you  guilty  or  the  penalties  of  treason  would  be  visited  to 


SECOND    LKCTURB.  29 

them.  W..ere  would  l>o  the  liberty  and  law  with  which  jrou 
are  fortunately  blessed,  if  your  trials  by  jury  were  conduct. 
ed  after  the  pattern  of  Mr.  Froude'a  lover  of  order  and  hater 
of  disorder,  Henry  7111.1  When  Henry  prohibited  the 
Catholic  religion  among  his  subjects,  what  did  be  give  them  in- 
stead ?  Certainly  not  Protestantism,  for  to  the  lasl  day  ofhii 
life  if  he  could  have  laid  hands  on  Luther,  he  would  hav  •  made 
a  toast  of  him.  H>.  heard  Mass  upto  his  death,  and  after  his 
death  a  solemn  High  Mass  was  celebrated  over  his  inflated  corpse 
thai  the  Lord  might  have  mercy  on  his  soul.  Ah  !  my  friends, 
some  other  poor  soul,  I  suppose,  got  the  benefit  of  that  blase. 

The  second  grand  clement  is  respect  for  conscience.  The 
conscience  of  man,  and  consequently  of  a  nation,  is  supposed 
to  be  the  great  guide  in  all  the  relations  that  individuals  or  the 
people  bear  to  God.  Conscience  is  bo  free  that  Almighty  God 
himself  respects  it.  It  is  a  theological  axiom  that  if  a  man 
does  wrong  when  he  thinks  he  is  doing  right,  the  wrong  will 
not  be  attributed  to  him  by  Almighty  God.  Was  tins  man 
Henry  a  respecter  of  conscience  ?  One  of  ten  thousand 
instances  of  his  contempt  for  liberty  of  conscience— let  me 
select  one.  He  ordered  the  people  of  England  to  change  their 
religion,  and  to  give  up  that  grand  system  of  dogmatic  teaching 
which  is  in  the  Catholic  Church,  where  every  man  knows  what 
to  believe,  whal  to  -1",  and  what  to  avoid.  And  what  religion 
did  Henry  offer  to  the  people  of  England  ?  He  simp' 
to  them:  Every  man  in  the  land  must  agree  with  me  o 
whatever  I  decide  in  religion.  More  than  this,  his  Parliament 
—  a  slavish  Parliament,  every  man  afraid  of  his  life — passing 
a  law  not  onlv  making  it  high  treason  to  disagree  with  the 
king  in  anything  that  he  believed,  but  that  no  man  should 
dispute  anything  which  the  king  Bhould  even  believe  at  any 
future  time.  No  man  was  all. .wed  to  have  a  conscience.  "  I 
am  vour  conscience,"  he  said  to  the  nation;  -1  am  your 
infallible  guide  in  what  you  have  to  believe  and  what  you  have 
to  do,  and  an v  man  who  disputes  m\  infallibility  is  euiltyof 
high  treason. 'an. 1  I  will  stain  my  hands  in  his  heart's  1-1 1. 

The  third  great  element  of  order  is  the  great  keystone  of 
the  arch  of  society— the  sanctity  of  the  marriage  vow.  \N  hat- 
evei  else  is  interfered  with,  that  must  not  be  touch.. 1.  tor  the 
Lord  says, '•  Whom  God  joins  together  let  no  manputasundor. 

No  power  in  heaven  or  in  earth,  much  less  in  hell,  ean  dissolve 
the  tie  of  marriage.  But  the  hero,  this  ■■  lover  of  order  and 
hater  of  disorder,"  had  s..  little  respect  for  tie-  sanctity  of 
marriage  that  he  put  awav  from  him.  brutally,  his  lawful  wife^ 
and  took  in  her  stead,  while  she  was  yet  living,  a  woman  sup 


80  FATHEB    BUBKE's    ANSWERS   TO   FBOUDB. 

posed  tt  be  his  own  daughter.  He  married  six  wives.  Two  he 
repudiated  divorced;  two  he  beheaded;  one  died  in  child- 
birth ;  the  sixth  and  the  last,  Catherine  Parr,  found  her  name 
among  the  list  of  destined  victims  in  Henry's  book,  and  would 
have  had  her  head  cut  off  had  the  monster  lived  a  few  days 
longer.  I  ask  you  if  it  is  not  too  much  it  face  of  these  facts 
taken  from  history,  for  Mr.  Froude  to  corrte  before  an  enlight 
cned  and  intelligent  American  public  and  ask  them  to  believ.- 
the  absurd  paradox,  that  Henry  VIII.  was  an  admirer  of  order 
and  a  hater  of  disorder. 

But  Mr.  Froude  may  say  this  is  not  fair ;  1  said  in  my 
lecture  that  I  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  Henry  VIII.'s 
matrimonial  transactions.  Ah !  Mr.  Froude,  you  were  wise. 
But  at  least  Mr.  Froude  says,  In  his  relations  to  Ireland  "  I 
claim  that  he  was  a  hater  of  disorder,"  and  the  proofs  he  gives 
are  as  follows  : 

First  he  says  that  one  of  the  curses  of  Ireland  is  absentee 
landlords,  and  he  is  right.  Henry  VIII.,  he  says,  put  an  end 
to  that  absenteeism  in  the  simplest  way  imaginable.  He  took 
the  estates  from  the  absentees  and  gave  them  to  other  people 
■who  were  willing  to  live  on  them.  That  sounds  very  plausi- 
ble. Let  us  analyze  it.  During  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  be- 
tween Lancaster  and  York,  which  preceded  the  Reformation 
in  England,  many  old  Anglo-Norman  families  settled  in  Ire- 
land crossed  over  to  England  and  joined  in  the  fight.  It  was 
an  English  question,  and  an  English  war,  and  the  consequence 
was  that  many  English  settlers  in  Ireland  abandoned  their 
estates  to  take  part  in  it.  Others  again  left  Ireland  because 
they  had  large  English  properties,  and  preferred  to  reside  in 
England.  When  Henry  VIII.  ascended  the  throne,  the  Eng- 
lish pale  consisted  of  about  one-half  of  the  counties  of  Louth, 
Meath,  Wicklow,  Dublin,  and  Wexford.  According  to  Mr. 
Froude,  Henry  did  a  great  act  of  justice  in  taking  the  es 
tates  of  the  English  absentees  and  parcelling  them  out  among 
his  own  favorites  and  friends.  It  is  a  historic  fact  that  the 
Irish  people,  as  soon  as  the  English  settlers  retired,  came  in 
and  repossessed  themselves  of  these  estates,  which  were  their 
own  property.  And  mark,  my  friends,  that  even  had  the 
Irish  people  no  title  to  that  property  as  their  ancient  and  God- 
g'nen  inheritance,  they  had  the  right  which  is  everywhere 
recognized,  Bona  derelicta  snnt  primi  capientis — which,  in 
plain  English,  means  that  things  abandoned  belong  to  the  man 
who  :.s  first  to  get  hold  of  them.  But  much  more  just  was  the 
title  uf  the  Irish  to  the  lands  abandoned  by  the  English.  The 
lands  were  their  own.     They  had  been  unjustly  dispossessed 


8BCOVD    LKCTUEK.  SI 

of  then  and  they  had  the  right  to  regain  them.  They  ther*< 
fore  had  two  titles,     The  land  was  theirs  because  they  found 

it  untenanted,  theirs  because  they  had  once  owned  it  and 
never  lost  the  right  of  it.  Hut  Henry,  being  a  lover  of  ->rder, 
dispossessed  the  absentees  of  th-ir  estates  and  tinned  the 
property  over  to  other  Englishmen,  men  who  would  live  in 
Ireland  and  on  the  land,  and  Mr.  Froude  claims  that  in  bo 
doing  he  acted  well  for  the  Irish  people.  But  the  doing  of 
this  involved  the  driving  of  the  Irish  people  a  second  time 
from  their  own  property.  Suppose  that  the  President  of  the 
United  States  should  seize  your  property  and  give  it  to  a 
friend  of  his,  and  say  to  you,  M  Now,  my  friend  and  fellow- 
citizen,  remember  1  am  a  lover  of  order;  I  have  given  you  a 
resident  landlord."  Such  was  the  benefit  which  Henry  con- 
ferred on  Ireland  in  turning  out  the  Irish  owners  to  give  place 
to  English  resident  landlords. 

In  1520  Henry  sent  the  Earl  of  Surrey  to  Ireland.  Surrey 
was  a  brave  soldier,  a  stern,  rigorous  man.  Henry  thought 
that  by  sending  him  over  and  backing  him  with  an  army  he 
would  be  able  to  reduce  to  order  the  disorderly  elements  of 
the  Irish  nation.  That  disorder  reigned  in  Ireland  I  readily 
admit.  But  in  tracing  that  disorder  to  its  cause  1  claim  that 
the  cause  is  not  to  be  found  in  any  inherent  restlessness  of  the 
Irish  character,  though  they  are  fond  of  a  fight,  I  grant  that  ; 
but  the  main  cause  was  the  unjust  and  inhuman  legislation  of 
English  rulers  for  four  hundred  years,  and  to  the  presence  in 
Ireland  of  the  Anglo-Norman  chieftains,  who  were  anxious  to 
foment  disturbance  in  order  that  they  might  escape  the  payment 
of  their  dues  to  the  king.  Surrey  came  over  and  found — 
brave,  accomplished  general  as  he  was — that  the  Irish  were 
too  much  for  him.  He  said  to  Henry:  "The  only  way  to 
subdue  this  people  is  to  conquer  them  utterly  ;  to  go  in  with 
fire  and  sword."  This,  Surrey  felt,  could  not  be  done,  for  the 
country  was  too  extensive,  the  situation  too  unfavorable,  and 
the  population  too  determined  to  be  subjected.  Then  Benry 
took  up  a  policy  of  conciliation.  Mr.  Frou.li>  gives  the  Eng- 
lish monarch  great  credit  for  trying  to  conciliate  the  Irish, 
He  did  it  because  he  could  not  help  it.  There  is  a  pa 
my  friends,  in  the  correspondence  between  Surrey  and  Henry 
which  speaks  volumes.  The  earl  says  that  when  h<>  arrived  in 
Ireland  he  found  the  people  in  the  midst  of  war  and  oonfasicn; 
but  the  people  who  were  really  the  source  of  the  OOfifusion  he 
declared  to  be  not  so  much  the  Irish  as  the  Anglo-NormaC 
lords  in  Ireland.     Here  is  th<'  past 

"The  two   Irish   chieftains,  McConnal   Oge  and    McCarty 


32        FATHER  BURKE'S  ANSWERS  TO  FROUDE. 

Ruah,  or  Red  McCarty,  are  more  favorable  to  order  than 
some  Englishmen  here." 

In  the  letter  of  one  of  Ireland's  bitter  enemies  is  found  the 
answer  to  Mr.  Froude's  repeated  assertion  that  the  Irish  are 
so  disorderly  and  so  averse  to  good  government  that  to  re- 
duce them  to  order  you  have  to  sweep  them  away  altogether. 
The  next  feature  of  Surrey's  policy  was  to  set  chieftain  against 
chieftain.     He  writes  : 

"  I  am  endeavoring  to  perpetuate  the  animosity  between 
O'Donnell  and  O'Niall  in  Ulster.  It  would  be  dangerful  to 
have  both  agree  and  join  together." 

Well  may  Mr.  Froude  say  that  when  the  Irish  are  a  unit 
they  will  be  invincible,  and  no  power  on  earth  can  keep  us 
slaves.     Surrey  says  • 

"  It  would  be  dangerful  if  both  should  agree  and  join 
together.  The  longer  they  continue  in  war  the  better  it  shall 
be  for  your  gracious  majesty's  poor  subjects  here." 

Mark  the  spirit  of  that  letter,  showing  as  it  does  the  whole 
policy  of  England's  treatment  of  Ireland.  He  does  not  speak 
of  the  Irish  as  subjects  of  the  King  of  England.  There  is  not 
the  slightest  consideration  for  the  unfortunate  Irish  who  are 
being  baited  against  each  other.  Let  them  contend  the  longer 
in  war,  the  more  will  be  swept  away,  and  "  the  better  it  will 
be  for  your  gracious  majesty's  poor  subjects  here."  The 
whole  object  of  Henry's  policy  and  Henry's  legislation  was  to 
protect  the  settlers  and  exterminate  the  Irish. 

Sir  John  Davidson,  Attorney-General  to  James  I.,  writing 
of  English  legislation,  said  that  for  hundreds  of  years  it  had 
been  merciless  to  Ireland. 

Then  the  Earl  of  Surrey  having  failed  to  reduce  the  Irish, 
Henry,  according  to  Mr.  Froude,  tried  home  rule  in  Ireland. 
Here  Mr.  Froude  tries  to  make  a  point  for  his  hero.  Irishmen, 
he  says,  admire  this  man  who  tried  the  experiment  of  home 
rule  in  your  country  and  finding  you  were  not  able  to  govern 
yourselves,  he  had  to  take  a  whip  and  drive  you.  One  would 
imagine  that  home  rule  means  that  Irishmen  should  have  the 
management  of  their  own  affairs,  and  make  their  own  laws. 
For  home  rule  means  this  or  nothing.  Home  rule  must  be  a 
delusion  and  a  snare  or  it  means  that  the  Irish  people  have  a 
right  to  assemble  in  parliament,  govern  themselves,  and  make 
their  own  laws.  But  Henry's  home  rule  meant  first  this:  the 
ippointment  of  the  Earl  of  Kildare  to  be  Lord  Lieutenant  and 
Deputy.  Henry  did  not  say  to  the  Irish  nation :  "  Send  your 
representatives  to  national  parliament  and  make  your  own 
laws;"  he  did  not  call  on  the  Irish  chieftaias  to  govern  tha 


SECOND    LECTURJC.  83 

country,  on  0  Brien,  O'Neill,  McCarty,  or  O'Donnell,  on  ihe 
men  who  had  the  right  by  inheritance  and  lineage  to  govern 
Ireland,  lie  said  to  the  Anglo-Norman  lords,  the  moel  qnar- 
relsome,  unnatural,  and  restless  class  that  1  have  ever  read  of 
in  history  :  "Take  the  government  in  your  own  hands."  And 
see  the  consequences.  The  Norman  lords  are  do  Booner  left 
to  govern  than  they  make  war  on  Ireland.  The  first  thing  that 
Kildare  does  is  to  summon  an  army  and  lay  waste  the  territo- 
ries of  his  Irish  fellow-chieftains  around  him,  and  after  a  time 
the  Anglo-Normans  fell  out  among  themselves.  The  great 
Anglo-Norman  family  of  the  Butlers  were  jealous  of  Kildare, 
■who  was  a  Fitzgerald.  They  procured  his  imprisonment  for 
treason,  and  in  truth  Kildare  did  carry  on  a  treasonable  corres- 
pondence with  Francis  1.  of  France  and  Charles  V,  F  Ger- 
many. When  Kildare  was  lodged  in  the  Tower  of  London, 
his  son,  Silken  Thomas,  revolted,  because  he  believed  that  his 
father  was  about  to  be  put  to  death.  King  Henry  declared 
war  against  him,  and  Thomas  against  the  king.  The  conse- 
quence of  the  war  was  that  the  whole  province  of  Munster  and 
a  part  of  Lcinstcr  were  ravaged,  people  destroyed,  and  vil- 
lages burned,  until  there  was  nothing  left  to  fed  man  or 
beast;  and  this  was  the  result  of  Henry's  "home  rule."  Kil 
dare's  appointment  as  Lord  Deputy  led  to  the  almost  utter 
vuin  of  the  Irish  people. 

Perhaps  you  will  ask  me,  Did  the  Irish  people  take  part  in 
that  war  so  as  to  justify  Henry  VIII.?  I  will  answer  by  saying 
they  took  no  part,  for  it  was  an  English  business  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end.  The  Irish  chieftains  took  no  interest  in 
that  war.  We  read  that  only  O'Carroll,  and  O'Moore  of 
Ossory,  and  another — that  these  were  the  only  Irish  chieftains 
that  took  part  in  the  matter  at  all.  These  throe  chieftains  of 
whom  I  speak  were  of  very  small  importance,  and  by  no  means 
represented  the  Irish  people  of  Munster  or  any  other  Irish 
province.      And    yet  from  this    very    fact    we    are    made   to 

believe  that  the  Irish  people  joined  and  agr 1  with  the  party 

of  whom  Henry  VIII.  was  tie-  head. 

Mr.  Froude  goes  on  to  say,  "The  Irish  people  got  to  like 
Henry  VIII."  If  they  did",  I  do  not  admin'  their  taste. 
"lie pleased  (he  might  have  said  blessed)  them,"  said  Mr. 
Fronde,  "and  they  got  fond  of  him.*'  Then  he  goes  on  tc 
6how  the  reason  why  it  was  that  "  Henry  never  showed  any 
disposition  to  dispossess  the  Irish  people    of   their    lands   or   to 

exterminate  them."  Honest  Henry!  1  take  him  up  on  that 
point.  Is  that  true,  or  is  it  not?  Fortunately  for  the  Irish 
historian,  the  state  papers  are  open  to  us  as  well   as   to   Mr. 


34  FATHER    BURKE'S   ANSWERS   TO   FRO  ITHE. 

Froude.  What  do  the  state  papers  of  the  reign  of  Henrj 
VIII.  tell  us  1  They  tell  us  that  a  project  was  formed  during 
the  reign  of  this  monarch  to  bring  the  whole  Irish  nation  into 
Connaught,  which  meant  dispossession,  or,  in  other  words, 
extermination.  Of  this  fact  there  is  no  question.  Henry 
VIII.  had  a  proclamation  issued  to  that  affect.  The  Council 
governing  Ireland  sanctioned  it,  and  the  people  of  England 
desired  it  so  much  that  the  paper  on  this  subject  ends  with 
these  words  : 

"  In  consequence  of  certain  promises  brought  to  pass,  there 
shall  no  Irish  be  on  this  side  of  the  waters  of  Shannon  unpro- 
secuted,  unsubdued,  and  unexiled.  Then  shall  the  English 
pale  be  well  two  hundred  miles  in  length  and  more." 

More  than  this,  we  have  the  evidence  of  the  state  papers  of 
the  time  of  Henry  VIII.,  meditating  and  contemplating  the 
utter  extirpation,  the  utter  sweeping  away  and  destroying,  of 
the  whole  Irish  race  ;  for  we  find  the  Lord  Deputy  of  the 
Council  of  Dublin  writing  to  his  majesty,  and  here  are  his 
words  : 

"  They  tell  him  that  his  project  is  impracticable.  The  land 
is  very  large,  by  estimation  as  large  as  England  ;  so  that  to 
inhabit  the  whole  with  new  inhabitants  the  numbers  would  be 
so  great  that  there  is  no  prince  in  Christendom  that  would 
conscientiously  allow  so  many  subjects  to  depart  out  of  his 
realms." 

Not  enough  of  English  subjects  to  fill  up  the  place  of  the 
Irish.  Humanity  indeed !  Extirpate  the  whole  race  !  was 
the  cry.  But  this  could  not  be  done,  considering  the  great 
difficulty'  the  new  inhabitants  would  have  to  contend  with. 
But  then  the  document  goes  on  to  say : 

"This  is  a  difficult  process  (this  extermination)  consider- 
ing the  misery  those  Irishmen  can  endure — viz.,  both  hunger, 
cold,  and  thirst,  and  these  a  great  deal  more  than  the  inhabitants 
of  any  other  land." 

They  sought  utterly  to  banish  from  Ireland  the  people  of 
that  land.  Great  God  !  This  (Henry  VIII.)  is  the  man  that 
Mr.  Eroude  tells  us  is  the  friend  of  Ireland.  This  is  the  man 
who  is  "  the  great  admirer  of  order  and  the  hater  of  disorder." 
Certainly  he  was  about  to  create  a  magnificent  order  of  things, 
for  his  idea  was,  if  the  people  are  troublesome  and  you  want 
to  reduce  them  to  quiet,  "  kill  them  all."  Just  look  at  it.  It 
is  just  like  those  nurses  who  do  the  baby  farming  in  England 
— on  the  principle  of  farming  out  children.  When  the  child  is 
a  little  cross  or  disagreeably  unmanageable,  they  give  him  a 
dose  of  poison  and  it  quiets  him.     Do  you  know  the  reason 


SECOND   LKCTUKK.  3i 

whv  Henry  ViTL  pleased  them?  for  there  is  ik»  doubt  about 
it.  they  were  greatly  pleased  with  this  great  English  monarch. 
While  he  made  an  outward  show  of  conciliating  them,  he  was 

meditating   the  utter  ruin  and   destruction   of  the  Irish   race, 

and  he  had  the  good  sense  to  keep  it  to  himself)  and  it  only 
comes  out  in  his  state  papers.     He  treated  the  Irish  with  a 

certain  amount  of  courtesy  and  politeness.  Henry  was  a  man 
of  learning,  accomplished,  and  of  very  elegant  manners.  A 
man  with  a  bland  smile,  who  could  give  you  a  cordial  .shake 
hands.  It  is  true  the  next  day,  he  might  have  your  head  cut 
off,  but  still  he  had  the  manners  of  a  gentleman.  It  is  a  strange 
fact  that  the  two  most  gentlemanly  kings  of  England  were  the 
two  greatest  scoundrels'  that  ever  lived  on  the  earth— namely, 
Henry  Vlll.  and  George  IV.  Accordingly,  he  dealt  with  the 
Irish  people  with  a  certain  amount  of  civility  and  courtesy. 
He  did  not  goon,  like  all  his  predecessors  before  him,  saying  : 
"  You  are  the  king's  enemies  ;  you  are  to  be  all  put  to  death  ; 
you  are  without  the  pale  of  the  law  ;  you  are  barbarians  and 
savages  and  1  will  have  nothing  to  say  to  you."  Henry  said  : 
"Let  us  see.  Can't  we  arrange  all  difficulties  and  live  in 
peace  and  quietness?"  And  the  Irish  people  were  charmed 
with  his  kind  manner.  Ah  !  my  friends,  it  is  true  there  was 
a  black  heart  beneath  that  smiling  face,  ami  it  is  also  true  that 
the  very  fact  that  Mr.  Froude  acknowledges,  that  Henry  \  111. 
had  a  certain  amount  of  popularity  in  the  beginning  among 
the  Irish  people,  proves  that  if  England  only  knew  how  to 
treat  Ireland  with  respect  and  courtesy  and  kindness,  it  would 
long  since  have  gained  possession  of  the  fidelity  of  that  unhappy 
country,  instead  of  embittering  it  by  the  injustice,  the  tyranny, 
and  the  cruelty  of  her  laws.  And  that  is  what  I  meant  when 
on  last  Tuesday  evening  I  said  that  the  English  contempt  for 
Irishmen  is  a  real  evil  that  lies  at  the  root  of  all,  and  the  bad 
spirit  that  exists  between  the  two  nations,  for  the  simple. 
reason  that  the  Irish  people  are  too  intellectual,  too  pure,  too 
r»oble,  too  heroic  to  allow  themselves  to  bo  humbled  and 
enchained,  and  their  pride  to  be  despised. 

And  now,  my  friends,  Mr.  Fronde  went  on  to  give  us  a 
proof  of  the  great  love  the  Irish  people  have  for  Harry  the 
Eighth.  He  says  they  were  so  fond  of  this  king  that  actual. 
Iy,  at  the  king's  request,  Ireland  threw  the  Pope  overboard. 
VVhy  was  it  that  they  threw  the  Pope  overboard  ?  We  will 
see.  Now,  Mr.  Fronde,  fond  as  we  were  of  our  glorious  Har- 
ry the  Eighth,  we  were  QOt  so  enamored  of  him  as   you   think. 

We  had  not  fallen  so  deeply  in  love  w  rh  him  as  to  give  up 

the  Pope  for  him.      What  are  the  facts  of  the  case  1     Henry 


36        FATHKB  BURKE'S  ANSWERS  TO  FROUDE. 

about  the  year  1530,  got  into  difficulties  with  the  Pope.  lie 
commenced  by  asserting  his  own  authority  as  head  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  and  picked  out  an  apostate  monk,  who  had 
neither  a  character  for  conscientiousness  nor  virtue,  and  had 
him  consecrated  the  first  Archbishop  of  Dublin — George 
Brown.  He  sent  Brown  to  Dublin  with  a  commission  to  get 
the  Irish  nation  to  follow  in  the  wake  of  the  English,  and  to 
throw  the  Pope  overboard  and  acknowledge  Henry's  suprem- 
acy. Brown  arrived  in  Dublin.  He  called  the  bishops  to- 
gether and  said:  "  1  think  you*must  change  your  allegiance. 
You  must  give  up  the  Pope  and  take  Henry,  King  of  England, 
in  his  stead."  Cramer,  the  Archbishop,  said,  "  What  blasphemy 
is  this  that  1  hear  ?  Ireland  will  never  change  her  faith,  re- 
nounce her  Catholicity ;  and  she  would  have  to  renounce  it  by 
renouncing  the  head  of  the  Catholic  Church."  And  the  bishops 
of  all  Ireland  followed  the  Primate,  all  the  pastors  of  Ireland 
followed  the  Primate,  and  George  Brown  wrote  the  most 
lugubrious  letter  to  Thomas  Cromwell,  and  in  it  he  said,  among 
other  things,  "  I  would  return  to  England,  only  1  am  afraid 
the  king  would  have  my  head  taken  off.  I  am  afraid  to  re- 
turn to  England."  Three  years  later,  however,  Brown  and 
the  Lord  Deputy  summoned  a  parliament,  and  it  was  at  this 
parliament  of  1537,  according  to  Mr.  Froude,  that  Ireland 
threw  the  Pope  overboard.  Now,  what  are  the  facts'?  A 
parliament  was  assembled,  and  from  time  immemorial  in 
Ireland  whenever  a  parliament  was  assembled  there  were  three 
delegates,  called  proctors,  from  every  district  in  Ireland,  who 
sat  in  the  House  by  virtue  of  their  office.  When  the  parlia- 
ment was  called,  the  first  thing  they  did  was  to  banish  the 
three  proctors  and  deprive  them  of  their  seats  in  the  House. 
Without  the  slightest  justice,  without  the  slightest  show  or 
pretence  of  either  right,  or  law,  or  justice,  the  proctors 
were  excluded,  and  so  the  ecclesiastical  element  of  Ireland 
was  precluded  from  the  parliament  of  1537.  Then,  partly 
by  bribes  and  threats,  the  Irish  little  boroughs  that  surrounded 
Dublin  took  an  oath  that  Henry  was  head  of  the  Church,  and 
Mr.  Eroude  calls  this  the  apostasy  of  the  Irish  nation.  With 
that  strange  want  of  knowledge,  for  I  can  call  it  nothing  else, 
he  imagines  that  the  Irish  remained  Catholics,  even  though  he 
asserts  they  gave  up  the  Pope.  They  took,  he  says,  the  oath — 
bishops  and  all — and  thereby  acknowledged  Henry  VIII.'s 
supremacy.  But,  nevertheless,  they  did  not  become  Protes- 
tants, they  still  remained  Catholic;  and  the  reason  why  they 
didn't  take  to  Elizabeth  was  because  she  wanted  to  entail  on 
thorn  the  Protestant  religion  as  well  as  the  oath  of  supremacy. 


■  KCOND    LKOTTBE.  37 

The  Catholic  Church  and  its  doctrines  they  abided   by   »nd 

they  believed  then,  as  they  do  now,  thai  it 

Catholio  who  is  not  in  communion    with  the  Pope  of  R 

Henry  Vill.,  who  was  a  learned  man,  had  too  much  logic,  and 
too  much  theology,  and  too  much  Bei 
called  a  Protestant.  He  never  embraced  the  doctrines  of 
Luther,  but  held  on  to  every  idea  of  Catholic  dootrio  ■  to  the 
very  last  day  of  his  life,  except  that  he  refused  to  acknow 
the  Pope,  and  on  the  day  that  Henry  VIII.  refused  to  ac- 
knowledge the  Pope  he  refused  to  be  a  Catholic  To  pretend 
that  the  Irish  people  were  so  ignorant  as  to  imagine  thai  they 
could  throw  the  Pope  overboard  and  still  remain  Catholic  is 
to  offer  to  the  genius  and  intelligence  of  Ireland  a  gratuitous 
insult.  It  is  true  that  some  of  the  bishops  apostatized.  TTiey 
took  the  oath  of  supremacy  tu  Henry  VIII.     Their  names  will 

ever  be  held  in  contempt  by  the  Irish  ] pie. 

Five  bishops  only  apostatized.  The  rest  of  Ireland's  epis- 
copacy remained  faithful.  George  Brown,  the  apostate  Arch- 
bishop of  Dublin,  acknowledged  that  of  ail  the  priests  in  the 
diocese  of  Dublin  he  could  only  induce  three  to  take  the  oath 
of  spiritual  allegiance  to  Henry  VIII.  There  was  a  priest  in 
Connaught,  Dominic  Tirrell,  and  he  took  the  oath  of  alle- 
giance simply  because  he  was  offered  the  diocese  of  I 
Alexander  Deveivaux,  Abbot  of  Dunbardy,  was  given  the 
diocese  of  Ferns,  in  the  County  of  Wexford,  in  order  to  induce 
him  to  swear  allegiance  to  the  English  king.  Th 
the  names  that  represent  the  national  apostasy  of  Ireland 
Out  of  so  many  hundreds  eight  were  found  wanting,  and  still 
Mr.  Froude  tells  us  the  Irish  bishops  and  priests  threw  the 
Pope  overboard.  He  (Mr.  Froude)  makes  another  assertion, 
and  1  regret  he  made  it.  I  refer  to  it  because  there  is  much 
in  the  learned  gentleman  to  admire  and  esteem.  He  asserts 
that  the  bishops  of  Ireland  in  those  days  were  immoral  men; 
thai  they  had  families;  that  they  were  uol  like  the  venerable 
men  we  see  iii  the  episcopacy  of  to-day.  Now,  I  assert  there 
is  not  a  shred  of  testimony  to  bear  up  Mr.  Froude  in  this 
wild  assertion.  |  have  read  the  history  of  Ireland— national, 
civil,  ecclesiastical — as  far  as  I  could,  and  nowhere  have  I 

even   an   allegation    which    lavs  a   proof  Of  immorality  as 

the  Irish  clergy  or  their  bishops  at  the  time  of  the  Reforma- 
tion.    But  perhaps  when  Mr.  Froude  said  this  he  meant  the 
apostate  bishops.     If  so,  I  am  willing  to  grant  him  whatever 
he  charges  against  them,  and  the  heavier  ii  is  the  more  pl< 
i  am  to  sec  it  going  against  them. 
The  nwt  passage  in  the  relation  of  Henry   VIII.    to    Ire- 


38  FATHEK    BURKE'S   1KSWBBS   TO    FKOUDK. 

land  goes  to  prove  that  Ireland  did  not  throw  the  Pop« 
overboard.  My  friends,  in  the  year  1541  a  Parliament  as. 
sembled  in  Dublin  and  declared  that  Henry  Vlll.  was 
King  of  Ireland.  They  had  been  four  hundred  years  and 
more  fighting  for  the  title,  and  at  length  it  is  conferred  by  the 
Irish  Parliament  upon  the  English  monarch.  Two  years  later, 
in  gratitude  to  the  Irish  Parliament,  Henry  called  the  Irish 
chieftains  together  at  Greenwich  to  a  grand  assembly,  and  on 
the  first  day  of  July,  1543,  he  gave  the  Irish  chieftains  their 
English  titles.  O'Neill  of  Ulster  got  the  title  of  Earl  of 
Tyrone  ;  the  glorious  O'Donnell  the  title  of  Earl  of  Tyrcon- 
nel;  Ulric  McWilliams  Burke,  Earl  of  Clanricarde ;  Fitz- 
patrick  received  the  name  of  Baron  of  Ossory,  and  they 
returned  to  Ireland  with  their  new  titles.  Henry,  however, 
open-handed,  poor  generous  fellow — and  he  was  really  very 
generous — gave  those  chieftains  not  only  the  titles,  but  a  vast 
amount  of  property — only  it  happened  to  be  stolen  from  the 
Catholic  Church.  He  was  an  exceedingly  generous  man  with 
other  people's  goods.  He  had  a  good  deal  of  that  spirit  of 
which  Artemus  Ward  makes  mention.  He  (Artemus  Ward) 
says  he  was  "  quite  contented  to  see  his  wife's  first  cousin  go 
to  the  war."  In  order  to  effect  the  reformation  in  question  in 
Ireland,  Henry  gave  to  these  worthy  earls  with  their  English 
titles  all  the  abbey  lands  and  convents  and  churches  within 
their  possessions.  The  consequence  was  he  enriched  them, 
and  to  the  eternal  shame  of  the  O'Neill  and  O'Donnell, 
McWilliams  Burke,  and  the  Fitzpatrick  of  Ossory,  they  had 
the  cowardliness  and  weakness  to  accept  those  things  at  his 
hand.  They  came  home  with  the  spoil  of  the  monasteries,  but 
the  Irish  people  were  as  true  as  they  were  before  the  day 
when  the  Irish  chieftains  proved  false  to  their  country.  No- 
where in  the  previous  history  of  Ireland  do  we  find  the  clans 
rising  against  their  chieftain.  Nowhere  do  we  hear  of  the 
O'Neill  or  O'Donnell  dispossessed  by  his  own  people.  But 
on  this  occasion  when  they  came  home  n!ark  what  followed. 
O'Brien,  Eaii  of  Thomond,  when  he  arrived  in  Minister,  found 
half  his  dominions  in  rebellion  against  him.  With  reference 
to  McWilliams  Burke,  Earl  of  Clanricarde,  when  his  people 
heard  that  their  leader  had  accepted  the  abbey  lands,  the  first 
thing  they  did  was  to  set  up  against  him  another  man,  with 
the  title  of  McWilliam  Ulric  de  Burgh.  O'Neill,  Earl  of 
Tyrone,  was  taken  when  he  came  home  by  his  own  son,  and 
put  into  confinement  and  died  there,  all  his  people  abandoning 
him.  O'Donnell  of  Tyrconnel  came  home,  and  his  own  son 
and  all  hi*  people  rose  agains;  him  and  drove  him  out  from  the 


SECOND   LECTURK.  5S 

midst  of  them.  Now,  1  say  in  the  face  of  all  this  Mr.  Froude 
is  not  right  in  saying  that  Ireland  threw  the  Pope  overbnatd. 
These  people  came  borne  cot  Protestants  but  schismatics,  and 

very  bad  Catholics,  and  Ireland  would  DOt  Stand  it. 

Iienry  died  in  1  f* 47,  and  1  really  believe  that  with  all  the 
baduess'of  his  heart,  had  he  lived  a  few  years  longer  his  lite 
would  not  have  been  a  curse  but  a  blessing  to  Ireland,  for  th<? 
reason  that  those  who  came  after  him  were  worse  than  himself, 
lie  was  succeeded  by  his  infant  son,  Edward  VI.,  who  w.u* 
under  the  care  or  guardianship  of  the  Duke  <>*'  Somi 
He  was  a  thoroughgoing  Protestant.  Bomer»et  didn't 
believe  in  the  people's  supremacy,  and  was  opposed  to  any- 
thing that  favored  the  Catholic  Church.  Be  sent  over  hi* 
orders  to  put  his  laws  in  force  against  the  Church.  Conse- 
quently the  churches  were  pillaged,  the  Catholic  priests  wer« 
driven  out,  and,  as  Mr.  Fronde  puts  it,  "  the  implements  of 
superstition  were  put  down."  The  implements  of  superstition, 
as  Mr.  Froude  calls  them,  were  "Jesus  Christ  crucified,"  th-i 
statues  of  his  Blessed  Mother,  and  his  saints.  All  these 
things  were  pulled  down  and  destroyed.  The  ancient  statue 
of  Our  Lady  at  Trim  (County  Meath)  was  broken.  ^  The 
churches  were  burned,  and  torn  down,  and,  as  Mr.  Froude 
puts  it,  "  Ireland  was  taught  that  she  must  yield  to  the  new 
order  of  things  or  stand  by  the  Pope."  "  Her  national  ideas 
become  for  evermore  inseparably  linked  with  the  Catholic  reli- 
gion." Glory  to  you,  Mr.  Froude  !  lie  has  not  forgotten  to 
mention  the  fact  that  from  that  time  to  the  present  hour  Ire- 
land's independence  and  Ireland's  religion  became  inseparably 
and  irrevocably  one.  If  the  learned  gentleman  were  present,  I 
have  no  doubt  that  he  would  rise  up  and  bow  his  thanks  to  you 
for  the  hearty  manner  in  which  you  have  received  his  senti- 
ments. And  I  am  sure  that,  as  he  is  not  here,  he  will  not 
take  it  ill  of  me  when  1  thank  you  in  his  name.  Bloody  Mary 
was  a  Catholic,  without  a  doubt.  She  persecuted  her  Protes- 
tant subjects.  Speaking  of  her  in  his  Lecture,  Mr.  Froude 
says  :  "There  was  no  persecution  of  Protestants  In  Ireland, 
because  there  were  no  Protestants  to  be  persecuted."  And 
he  goes  on  to  say  :  "Those  who  were  in  Ireland  when  Mar\ 
cam-  to  the  throne  fled."  1  must  take  the  learned  historian  to 
task  on  this.  The  insinuation  is,  that  if  the  Protestants  had 
been  in  Ireland  the  Irish  would  have  persecuted  them.  The 
impression  he  desires  to  leave  on  the  mind  is  that  we  Catholics 
would  be  only  too  glad  to  stain  our  hands  in  the  blood  of  our 
fellow-citizens  on  the  question  of  religion,  lj'-t  what  are  th* 
(arts  ?     The  fao  s  are  that  during  the  reign  of  Edward  VI..  and 


40        FATHER  BL'RKK'b  ANSWERS  TO  FEOUDE. 

during  all  the  years  of  his  fathei's  apostasy  from  the  Catholic 
Church,  there  were  sent  over  to  Ireland  as  bishops  men  whom 
ever.  English  historians  have  convicted  and  condemned  of 
almost  every  crime.  As  soon  as  Mary  came  to  the  throne 
these  gentlemen  did  not  wait  to  be  ordered  out ;  they  went 
out  of  their  own  accord.  They  thought  it  was  the  best  of 
their  play  to  clear  out  at  once.  But  so  far  as  regards  the  Irish 
people,  I  claim  for  my  native  land  that  she  never  persecuted 
on  account  of  religion.  I  am  proud,  in  addressing  an  American 
audience,  to  be  able  to  lay  this  high  claim  for  Ireland.  The 
genius  of  the  Irish  people  is  not  a  persecuting  genius.  There 
is  not  a  people  on  the  face  of  the  earth  so  attached  to  the 
Christian  religion  as  the  Irish  race.  There  is  not  a  people  on 
the  face  of  the  earth  so  unwilling  to  persecute  or  shed  blood 
in  the  cause  of  religion  as  the  Irish.  And  here  are  my  proofs  ; 
Mr.  Froude  says  that  the  Protestants  made  ofT  as  soon  as 
Queen  Mary  came  to  the  throne,  but  Sir  James  Ware  in  his 
annals  tells  us  that  the  Protestants  were  being  persecuted  in 
England  under  Mary,  and  that  they  actually  fled  over  to  Ire 
land  for  protection.  He  gives  even  the  names  of  some  ot 
them.  He  tells  us  that  John  Harvey,  Abel  Ellis,  Joseph 
Edmunds,  and  Henry  Hall,  natives  of  Cheshire,  in  England, 
came  over  to  Ireland  to  avoid  persecution  in  England,  and 
they  brought  with  them  a  Welsh  Protestant  minister  named 
Thomas  Jones.  These  four  gentlemen  were  received  so  cor 
dially,  were  welcomed  so  hospitably,  that  they  actually 
founded  a  highly  respectable  mercantile  family  in  Dublin.  But 
we  have  another  magnificent  proof  that  the  Irish  are  not  a 

4 >ef securing  race.  When  James  II.  assembled  his  Catholic 
Parliament  in  Ireland  in  1689,  after  they  had  been  robbed 
and  plundered,  imprisoned  and  put  to  death  for  their  adher- 
ence to  the  Catholic  faith,  at  last  the  wheel  gave  a  turn,  and 
in  1689  the  Catholics  were  up  and  the  Protestants  were  down. 
That  Parliament  assembled  to  the  number  of  228  members. 
The  Celtic  or  Catholic  element  had  a  sweeping  majority. 
What  was  the  first  law  that  they  made  ?  The  very  first  law 
mat  the  Catholic  parliament  passed  was  as  follows: 

"We  hereby  declare  that  it  is  the  law  of  this  land  of  Ireland 
that  neither  now  nor  ever  again  shall  any  man  be  persecuted 
for  his  religion." 

That  was  the  retaliation  that  we  took  on  them.  Was  it  not 
magnificent  ?  Was  it  not  a  grand,  a  magnificent  specimen  of 
that  spirit  of  Christianity,  that  spirit  of  forgiveness  and  charity 
without  which,  if  it  be  not  in  a  man,  all  the  dogmatic  truths 
that  ever  were  revealed  won't  save  him.     Now.  coming  to  Good 


SECOND    LZC1CRB.  «1 

Q.ieei.  Bess,  as  she  is  called.  1  must  say  that  Mr.  Fioude 
Dean  very  heavily  upon  her,  and  speaks  of  her  really  in 
language  as  terrific  in  its  severity  as  any  that  1  ooul 

far  more,  lor  1  have  not  tb<?  learning  nor  the  eloquence  of  Mr. 
Froude.      He  says  one    little  thing  of  her,  however,   ttU 

worthy  of  rem  ark  : 

«  Elizabeth  was  reluctant  to  draw  the  sword,  but  when  she 
Jid  draw  it  she  never  Bheathed  it  until  the  star  ut'  freedom 
wis  fixed  upon  her  banner,  never  to  pale." 

That  is  a  very  eloquent  passage  ;  but  the  soul  of  eloquence 
«8  truth.    Is  it  true  strictly  that  Elizabeth  was  reluctant  to 

u-aw  the  sword  ?  Answer  it,  ye  Irish  annals.  Answer  it,  O 
history  of  Ireland  !  Elizabeth  came  to  reign  in  1558.  The 
following  year,  in  1559,  there  was  a  Parliament  assembled  by 
her  order  in  Dublin.  What  do  you  think  of  the  laws  of  that 
Parliament?  It  was  not  a  Catholic  Parliament,  nor  an  Irish 
Parliament.  It  consisted  of  70  members.  Generally  Bpeak- 
ing,  parliaments  in  Ireland  used  to  have  from  220  to  230 
members.  This  Parliament  of  Elizabeth  consisted  of  To 
picked  men.     The  laws  that  that  Parliament  made  were,  first: 

Any  clergyman  not  using  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer 
[the  Protestant  Prayer-Book],  or  using  any  other  form, 
either  in  public  or  in  private,  the  first  time  that  he  is  dis- 
covered, shall  be  deprived  of  his  benefice  for  one  year,  and 
suffer  imprisonment  hi  jail  for  six  months;  for  the  second 
offence  he  shall  be  put  in  ja'd  at  the  queen's  pleasure—to 
be  let  out  whenever  she  thought  proper.  For  the  third 
offence  he  was  to  be  put  in  close  confinement  for  life.  'I  In-  ia 
the  lady  that  was  unwilling  to  draw  the  sword,  and  this  was 
the  very  year  she  was  crowned  queen— the  very  year.  She 
scarcely  waited  a  year.  This  was  the  woman  reluctant  to 
draw  the  sword.  "So  much  for  the  priests;  now  for  th* 
laymen. 

"if  a  layman  was  discovered  using  any  other  praj 
except  Queen  Elizabeth's  prayer-book,  he  was  to  be  put  iu 
jail  fo*  one  year;  and  if  he  was  caught  doing  it  a  second 
time  he  was  to  be  put  in  prison  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  Every 
Sunday  the  people  were  obliged  to  go  to  the  Protestant  church, 
and  if  any  one  refused  to  go,  for  every  time  thai  he  refused  he 
was  fined  twelve  pence— that  would  be  about  twelve  shillings 
of  our  present  money— and  besides  the  fine  he  was  to  endure 
the  censures  of  the  church.  M  The  star  of  freedom,  says  Mr. 
Froude,  "was  never  to  pale.     The  queen  drew  the  sword  in 

the  cause  of  the  star  of  freedom  I"     But,  my  Wends,  Ir lorn 

meant  whatever  was   in   Elizabeth's   mind.      Freedom   meant 


42  FATHER   BURKE'S    ANSWERS   TC    *ROCDB. 

slavery  tenfold  increased,  with  the  addition  of  religious  perae. 
cution  to  the  unfortunate  Irish.  It'  this  be  Mr.  Froude's  ideal 
of  the  star  of  freedom,  all  I  can  say  is,  the  sooner  such  stars 
fall  from  the  canopy  of  heaven  and  of  the  world's  history  the 
better.  The  condition  of  the  Irish  Church  :  in  what  state  was 
the  Irish  Church  ?  Upon  that  subject  we  have  the  authority 
of  the  Protestant  historian,  Leland.  There  were  220  parish 
churches  in  Meath,  and  after  a  few  years'  time  there  were  only 
105  of  them  left  with  the  roofs  on.  "  All  over  the  kingdom," 
says  Leland,  "  the  people  were  left  without  any  religious 
worship,  and  under  the  pretence  of  obeying  the  orders  of  the 
state  they  seized  all  the  most  valuable  furniture  of  the  churches, 
which  was  actually  exposed  to  sale  without  decency  or  reserve." 
A  number  of  hungry  adventurers  were  let  loose  upon  the  Irish 
churches  and  upon  the  Irish  jieople  by  Elizabeth.  They  not 
only  robbed  them  and  plundered  their  churches,  but  they  shed 
the  blood  of  the  bishops  and  priests  and  of  the  people  of 
Ireland  in  torrents,  as  Mr.  Eroude  himself  acknowledges.  He 
tells  us  that  after  the  second  rebellion  of  the  Gerald i nes,  such 
was  the  state  to  which  the  fair  province  of  Munster  was 
reduced  that  you  might  go  through  the  land  from  the  farmost 
point  of  Kerry  until  you  came  into  the  eastern  plains  of 
Tipperary,  and  you  would  not  as  much  as  hear  the  whistle  of  a 
ploughboy  or  behold  the  face  of  a  living  man.  But  the 
trenches  and  ditches  were  filled  with*  the  corpses  of  the 
people,  and  the  country  was  reduced  to  a  desolate  wilderness. 
The  poet  Spenser  describes  it  most  emphatically.  Even  he, 
case-hardened  as  he  was — for  he  was  one  of  the  plunderers 
and  persecutors  himself — acknowledged  that  the  state  of 
Munster  was  such  that  no  man  could  look  upon  it  with  a  dry 
eye.  Sir  Henry  Sidney,  one  of  Elizabeth's  deputies,  speaks 
of  the  condition  of  the  country  as  follows  : 

«'  Such  horrible  spectacles  are  to  be  beheld  as  the  burning  of 
villages,  the  ruin  of  towns,  yea,  the  view  of  the  bones  and 
skulls  of  the  dead,  who,  partly  by  murder  and  partly  by 
famine,  have  died  in  the  fields.  It  is  such  that  hardly  any 
Christian  can  behold  with  a  dry  eye." 

Her  own  minister — I  take  his  testimony  of  the  state  to 
which  this  terrible  woman  reduced  unhappy  Ireland.  Strat- 
ford, another  English  authority,  says  : 

"  I  knew  it  was  bad,  and  very  bad,  in  Ireland,  but  that  it  was 
so  terrible  I  did  not  believe." 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  persecution,  what  was  still  the 
reigning  idea  in  the  mind  of  the  English  Government  ?  To 
root  out  and  to  extirpate  the  Irish  from  their  ovn  land,  a^ded 


SECOND    LEC1TRA.  43 

to  which  was  now  the  element  of  religious  discord  end  | 
cution.     It  is  evident  that  this  was  still  in  tin-   minds  of  the 
English   people.     Elizabeth,  who,    Mr.    Froude    says, 
dispossessed  any  Irishman  of  an  sore  of  laud,  daring  the  «ur 
which  she  waged  in  the  latter  days  of  her  reign  agai 
threw  out  such  hints  as  these  : 

"The  more  slaughter  there  is  the  better  it  will  hi  for  my 
English  subjects,  the  more  land  they  will  get." 

This  is  the  woman  whom  Mr.  Froude  tells  us  never  confis- 
cated and  never  listened  to  the  idea  of  confiscation  of  pro] 
This  woman,  when  the  Geraldines  were  destroyed,  took  the 
whole  of  the  vast  estates  of  the  Earl  of  Desmond  and  gave 
them  to  her  English  settlers.  She  confiscated  millions  of 
acres.  And  in  the  face  of  strict  troths,  recorded  and  stamped 
by  history,  1  cannot  see  how  any  man  oan  come  forward  and 
say  of  this  atrocious  woman  that  whatever  slu>  did  she  intend- 
ed it  for  the  good  of  Ireland. 

In  1002  she  died,  after  reigning  forty-one  years,  leaving 
Ireland  at  the  hour  of  her  death  one  vast  slaughter  house. 
Munster  was  reduced  to  the  state  described  by  Spenser.  ( Ion- 
naught  was  made  a  wilderness  after  the  rebellion  of  the  Clan- 
ricardes,  or  the  Burke  family.  Ulster,  through  the  agency  of 
Lord  Mountjoy,  was  left  the  very  picture  of  desolation.  The 
glorious  lied  Hugh  O'Donnell  and  the  magnificent  Hugh 
O'Neill  were  crushed  and  defeated  after  fifteen  yean  of  war, 
and  the  consequence  was  that  when  James  I.  suoo led  Eliza- 
beth he  found  Ireland  almost  a  wilderness. 

Mr.  Fronde,  in  his  rapid  historical  sketch,  says  that  all  this 
fruit  brought  revenge,  and  he  tells  us  that  in  1011  the  Irish 
rose  in  rebellion.  So  they  did.  Now,  he  makes  one  •  ■ 
ment,  and  with  the  refutation  of  that  statement  1  will  close 
this  lecture.  Mr.  Froude  tells  us  that  in  the  rising  under  Sir 
Phelim  O'Neill  in  1642  there  were  thirty-eight  thousand 
Protestants  massacred  by  the  Irish.  This  is  ■  grave  charge, 
and  if  it  be  true,  all  I  can  say  is  that  1  blush  for  my  fathers. 
But  if  it  be  not  true,  why  repeat   it  ?     Whj  it  out 

from  the  records'?  It  is  true  that  Ireland  rose  under  Bit 
Phelim  O'Neill.  At  that  time  there  was  n  Protestant  parson 
in  Ireland  who  called  himself  a  mmistei  of  the  Word  fGod. 
lie  gives  his  account  of  the  whole  transaction  in  a  letter  to 
the  people  of  England,  begging  of  them  to  help  their  fellow 
Protectants  of  Ireland.     Here  are  his  words  : 

"  It  was  the  intention  of  the  Irish  to  massacre  all  the  E\ 
On  Saturday  they  were  to  disarm  the:.;,  m  Sunday   to  seize 
all  their  cattle  and  goods,  nnd  on  Monday  they  were  to  cut  nil 


ii  FATHEB    BUKKE'S    ANSWERS   TO    PKOUDE. 

the  English  throats.  Tht  former  they  executed;  the  t hiid — 
that  is,  the  massacre — they  failed  in."* 

Pettit,  another  English  authority,  tells  as  that  there  vera 
30,000  Protestants  massacred  at  that  time.  A  man  of  the 
name  of  May  foots  it  up  at  200,000.  1  suppose  he  thought, 
in  for  a  penny  in  for  a  pound.  But  there  was  an  honest  Pro- 
testant clergyman  in  Ireland  who  examined  minutely  into  the 
details  of  the  whole  conspiracy,  and  of  all  the  evils  that  came 
from  it.  What  does  he  tell  us?  "1  have  discovered,"  he 
said — and  he  gives  proof,  state  papers  and  authentic  records 
— "  that  the  Irish  Catholics  in  that  rising  massacred  2,100  Pro- 
testants; that  other  Protestants  said  that  there  were  1,600 
more;  and  that  some  Irish  authorities  themselves  say  there 
were  3,000,  making  altogether  4,600." 

This  is  the  massacre  that  Mr.  Froude  speaks  of.  He  tosses 
off  so  calmly,  38,000  Protestants  were  massacred — that  is  to 
say,  he  multiplies  the  original  number  by  ten;  whereas  Mr. 
Warner,  the  authority  in  question,  says  that  there  were  2,100, 
and  I  am  unwilling  to  believe  in  the  additional  numbers  that 
have  been  sent  in. 

After  all  the.  sufferings  and  persecutions  which  Ireland  had 
endured  at  the  hands  of  English  Protestants,  1  ask  you  to  set 
these  two  authorities  before  your  mind.  Contrast  them  and 
give  me  a  fair  verdict. 

Is  there  anything  recorded  in  history  more  terrible  than  the 
persistent,  undying  resolution,  so  clearly  manifested,  of  the 
English  Government  to  root  out,  to  extirpate,  and  destroy  the 
people  of  Ireland  1  Is  there  anything  recorded  in  history  more 
unjust  than  this  systematic  .constitutional  robbery  of  a  people 
whom  the  Almighty  God  created  in  that  island,  to  whom  he 
gave  that  island,  and  who  had  the  aboriginal  right  to  every 
inch  of  Irish  soil  ?  On  the  other  hand,  can  history  bring  forth 
a  more  magnificent  spectacle  than  the  calm,  firm,  united  reso- 
lution with  which  Ireland  stood  in  defence  of  her  religion,  and 
gave  up  all  things  rather  than  sacrifice  what  she  conceived  to 
be  the  cause  of  truth  1  Mr.  Froude  does  not  believe  that  it  is 
the  cause  of  truth.  1  do  not  blame  him;  every  man  has  a 
right  to  his  religious  opinions.  But  Ireland  believed  that  it 
was  the  cause  of  truth,  and  Ireland  stood  for  it  like  one  man. 

I  speak  of  all  these  things  only  historically.  1  do  not 
believe  in  animosity.  I  am  no  believer  in  bad  blood.  1  do 
not  believe  with  Mr.  Froude  that  the  question  of  Ireland's 
difficulties  must  remain  without  a  solution;  1  do  not  give  it  up 
in  despair  ;  but  this  I  do  say,  that  he  has  no  right,  nor  has  any 
other  mar  the  right,  to  co-ne  before  the  audience  of  America, 


8«C0ND    LECTUKK.  46 

that  has  never  persecuted  in  the  cause  of  relig.on — of  America, 
that  respects  the  rights  even  of  the  meanest  citizen  upon  h.-r 
soil — and  to  ask  that  American  people  to  sanction  by  th  ir 
verdict  the  robberies  and  persecutions  of  which  England  n 
guilty  I 


THIRD  LECTURE. 


DELIVERED   IN  THE  ACADEMY   OP  MUSIC,  NEW   YORK,  NOVEMBB* 

19.  1872. 


Ladies  and  Gentlemen  : 

I  now  approach,  in  answering  Mr.  Froude,  some  of  the  most 
awful  periods  of  our  history,  and  I  confess  that  I  approach  this 
terrible  ground  with  hesitancy,  and  with  an  extreme  regret 
that  Mr.  Froude  should  have  opened  up  questions  which  oblige 
an  Irishman  to  undergo  the  pain  of  heart  and  anguish  of 
spirit  which  a  revision  of  those  periods  of  our  history  must 
occasion.  The  learned  gentleman  began  his  third  lecture  by 
reminding  his  audience  that  he  had  closed  his  second  lecture 
with  a  reference  to  the  rise,  progress,  and  collapse  of  a  great 
rebellion  which  took  place  in  Ireland  in  1641 — that  is  to  say, 
somewhat  more  than  two  hundred  years  ago.  He  made  but  a 
passing  allusion  to  that  great  event  in  our  history,  and  in  that 
allusio^i — if  he  has  been  reported  correctly — he  said  simply 
that  the  Irish  rebelled  in  1641.  This  was  his  first  statement, 
that  it  was  a  rebellion  ;  secondly,  that  this  rebellion  began  in 
massacre  and  ended  in  ruin ;  thirdly,  that  for  nine  years  the 
Irish  leaders  had  the  destinies  of  their  country  in  their  hands  ; 
and,  fourthly,  that  those  nine  years  were  years  of  anarchy  and 
mutual  slaughter.  Nothing,  therefore,  can  be  imagined  more 
melancholy  than  the  picture  drawn  by  that  learned  gentleman 
of  these  nine  sad  years.  And  yet  1  will  venture  to  say,  and  I 
hope  1  shall  be  able  to  prove,  that  each  of  these  four  state- 
ments is  without  sufficient  historical  foundation.  My  first 
position  is  that  the  movement  of  1G41  was  not  a  rebellion ; 
second,  that  it  did  not  begin  with  massacre,  although  it  ended 
in  ruin ;  thirdly,  that  the  Irish  leaders  had  not  the  destiny  of 
their  country  in  their  hands  during  these  years ;  and,  fourth, 
whether  they  had  or  not,  that  these  years  were  not  a  period 
of  anarchy  and  mutual  slaughter.  They  were  but  the  opening 
to  a  far  more  terrific  period.  We  must  discuss  these  questions, 
my  friends,  calmly  and  historically.  We  must  look  upon 
them  rather  like  the  antiquarian  prying  into  the  past  than  with 
the  living,  warm  feelings  of  men  whose  blood  boils  up  with 
the  burnings  of  so  much  injustice  frad  so  much  bloodshed. 
M 


TH1KD    LKr'ITRB.  4  7 

lu  order  to   understand   this  question   fully   and   fairly    it  is 
necessary  for  us  to  go   back  to   the  historical  evi 
time.     I  find,  then,  thai  James  I.,  the  man  who  plant*  d  I 
— that  is  to  Bay,  confiscated  utterly  and  entirely 
finest  counties  in  Ireland,  an  entire  province,  rooting  o  . 
aboriginal  Irish  and  I  latholic  inhabitants,  even  to  a  man,  giving 
the    whole    country    CO    Scotch    and     English    settler*    oi 

Protestant  religion,  under  the  condition  that  they  were  i       |  i 
employ  even  as  much  as  an  Irish  laborer  on  their  grounds,  thai 

they  were  to  banish  them  all — this  man  died  in  l<i~.">,  an 
succeeded  by  his  unfortunate  sun,  Charles  I.      Wln-u   Charles 
came  to  the  throne,  bred  up  as  he  was  in  the  traditions  of  a 
monarchy  which  Henry  Vdll.  had  rendered  almost  a 

we  know — whose  absolute  power  was  still  continue, 1  in  | 
beth  under  forms  the  most  tyrannical,  whose  absolute  ; 
was  continued  by  his  own  father,  James  1. — Charli  -  I  » 

the  throne  with  the  most  exaggerated  ideas  of  royal  prh 
and  supremacy.     But  during  the  days  of  his  father  a  inn  - 
had  grown  up  in  Scotland  and  in  England.     The  form  which 
Protestantism   took    in  Scotland   was  the  hard,  oncompn 
ing,  and  highly  cruel  form  of  Calvinism   in  its  most   repliant 
aspect.     The  men  who  rose   in  Scotland    in   A^\'<-\. 
Presbyterian    religion  rose   not    against  Catholic  people,   but 
against    the     Episcopalian     Protestants    of    England.       Th  y 
defended  what  they  called  the  kirk  or  covenant.      'J 
bravely,  I  acknowledge,  for  it,  and  they  ended  in  establishing 
it  as  the  religion  of  Scotland. 

Now,  Charles  1.  was  an  Episcopalian  Protestant  of  the  most 
sincere  and  devoted  kind.     The  Parliament  of  England,  in  the 
very  first  years  of  Charles,  admitted  persons  who  were  strong- 
ly tinged  with  Sr.ttish  Calvinism.    The  king  demanded  of 
them  certain  subsidies  and  they  refused  him  ■  lie  a 
tain  sovereign   rights  and   they   denied   them.      While  th 
going  on  in  England  from   1630  I  ■  1641,  what  was  the  condi- 
tion of  airairs  in  Ireland  I     One  fertile  province  of  tie-  land 
had  been  confiscated  by  James  I.     Charles  I.  was  in  m 
money  fbr  his  own   purposes,  and  his  Parliament  refused  :<> 
grant   any.     Then    the   poor,   oppressed,   and   down-tr 
Catholicsof  Ireland  imagined,  naturally  enough,  thai 
being  in  difficulties,  would  turn  to  them  and  extend  a  little 
countenance  and  favor  if  they  proclaimed  their  loyalty 
stood  by  him.     Accordingly,  the  Lord  Lieutenant, Lord  I 
Land,  desiring  sincerely  ;  i  aid  his  royal  master,  hinted  to  the 
Catholics,  who  had  been  enduring  the  most  terrible  penal 
from  the  days  of  Eli/  .  I.,  that  perhaps,  if  they 


48  FATHKB   BUEKE'S   AN8WKK8   TO    FROCDE. 

should  now  petition  the  king,  "ertain  graces  or  concessions 
might  be  granted  them.  These  concessions  simply  involved 
permission  of  riding  over  English  land  and  to  worship  God 
according  to  the  dictates  of  their  own  conscie-P.es.  They 
sought  for  nothing  more,  and  nothing  more  was  promised 
them.  When  their  petition  was  laid  before  the  king,  his 
royal  majesty  issued  a  proclamation  in  which  he  declared 
that  it  was  his  intention,  and  that  he  had  plighted  his  word, 
to  grant  to  the  Catholics  and  people  of  Ireland  certain  conces- 
sions and  indulgences,  which  he  named  "  graces."  No  sooner 
does  the  newly-founded  Puritan  element  in  England  and  the 
Parliament  that  were  in  rebellion  against  their  king — nc 
sooner  did  they  hear  that  the  slightest  relaxation  of  the  penal 
law  was  to  be  granted  to  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  than  they 
instantly  rose  and  protested  that  it  should  not  be ;  and 
Charles,  to  his  enternal  disgrace,  broke  his  word  with  the 
Catholics  of  Ireland  after  they  had  sent  him  £120,000  in  ac- 
knowledgment of  his  promise.  More  than  that,  it  was  sus- 
pected that  Lord  Falkland  was  too  mild  a  man,  too  just  a 
man,  to  be  allowed  to  remain  as  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland, 
and  he  was  recalled,  and  after  a  short  lapse  Wentworth,  who 
was  Earl  of  Strafford,  was  sent  there  as  Lord  Lieutenant. 
Wentworth  on  his  arrival  summoned  a  Parliament,  and  they 
met  in  the  year  1634.  He  told  them  the  difficulties  that  the 
king  was  in ;  he  told  them  how  the  Parliament  in  England 
was  rebelling  against  him,  and  how  he  looked  to  his  Irish 
subjects  as  loyal.  He  perhaps  told  them  that  amongst  Ca- 
tholics loyalty  was  not  a  mere  sentiment,  that  it  was  an 
unshaken  principle,  resting  on  conscience  and  religion.  And 
then  he  assured  them  that  Charles,  the  King  of  England,  still 
intended  to  keep  his  word,  and  to  grant  them  their  conces- 
sions. Next  came  the  usual  demand  for  money,  and  the  Irish 
Parliament  granted  six  subsidies  of  £50,000  each.  Strafford 
wrole  to  the  king  congratulating  his  majesty  that  he  had  got 
so  much  money  out  of  the  Irish,  for  he  said  :  "  You  and  I 
remember  that  your  majesty  expected  only  £30,000,  and  they 
have  granted  £50,000."  More  than  this,  the  Irish  Parliament 
voted  the  king  8,000  infantry  and  1,000  horse  to  fight  his 
rebellious  enemies.  The  Parliament  met  the  following  year, 
1635,  and  what  do  you  think  was  the  fulfilment  of  the  royal 
promise  to  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  1  Strafford  had  got  the 
money.  He  did  not  wish  to  compromise  his  master  the 
king,  and  he  took  upon  himself  to  fix  upon  his  memory 
the  indelible  shame  and  disgrace  of  breaking  his  word, 
which  he  had  plighted,  and  disappoint  the  Catholics  of  Ireland. 


TBIBO   LB<  1 1  ice.  ■  i 

Then,  in  1635,  the  r«al  character  of  this  man  came  i 

what  do  you  think  wrae  the  measure  he  propoaed  '.     He  iu^ti- 

tuted  n  commission  for  the  express  purpose  of  oonl 

addition  to  Lister — that  was  already  gone — the  who 
of  Connaught,  so  as  not  to  Leave  an  Irishman  or  I 
square  inch  of  ground  in  that  land.     This  he  called  tb  ' 
mission  of  Defective  Titles.    The  members  of  the  oomra 
were  to  enquire  into  the  title  of  property,  and  to 
in  it  it' they  could,  in  order  that  the  land  might  be  conns 
to  the  Crown  of  England.     Remember  how  much  of  In    .    . 
had  already  been  seized,  my  friends.     The  whole  of  I 
had  been  confiscated  by  Janus  I.     The  same  king  had  I 
the  County  of  Longford  from  the  O'Farrels,  who  had 
it  from  time  immemorial;  Wexford  from  the  01 
several  other  comities  from  the  Irish  families  who  were  the 
rigntful  proprietors  of  the  soil.     And  now,  with  the  w  fi- 
llister and  the  better  part  of  Leinster  in  his  hand,  this  mi 
instituted  a  commission  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  the  whole. 
of  the  province  of  Connaught  and  of  rooting  out  the 
Irish!     He  expelled  every  man  that  owned  a  rod  of  land  in 
the  province  and  reduced  them  to  beggary,  starvation,  and  to 
death.     Here  is  the  description  of  his  plan  as  given  by  L*  land, 
a  historian   who    was  hostile  to  Ireland's    faith  and    Ireland's 
nationality.      Leland  thus  describes    this   project:    "It    was 
nothing  less  than  to  set  aside  the  title  of  every  estate  in  - 
part  of  Connaught,  a  project  which  when  proposed  in  the  late 
reign  was  received   with  norror  and   amazement,  and  which 
suited  the  undismayed  and  enterprising  genius  of  Lord  \v> 
worth.      Accordingly  he  began  in  the  County   \l 
He  passed  thence  toSligo,  thence  toM  iyo,  and  then  I 
The  only  way  in  which  a  title  could  1"'  upset  was  to  hive  a 
jury  of  twelve  men,  and  according  to  their  verdict   the  title 
was  valid  or  not.     Strafford  began  by  picking  his  jury  and 
packing  them,  the  old  policy  that  Ins  been  continued  d  >wn  to 
our  own  time — the  policy  of  packing  and  the  f  a 

jurv.     lie  told  the  jury  before  the  trials  began  that   b 
pected   them    to   find   a  "verdict    for   the    king,  and    finally,  by 

bribing  and  overawing,  be  got  j  iri(  -  to  g  i  for  him,  until  he 
came  into  my  own  county,  Galway.     And,  t  i  the  honor 
Galway   be  it  ».-»id,  as    soon  as  the  commission   arrived   in 
that  county   thoy   could   not    find    twelve  jurors  there  base 
enough  or  wicked  enough  to  i  the  lands  of  their  f 

subjects.     What  was  the  result  1    The  County  Galway  i 
were  called    to    Dublin  bei  »U«  Chamber.      1 

man  of  thorn  was  lined   £4,000,  and   put   in   prison   to   bfl 


60        FATHER  BURKE'S  ANSWERS  TO  FROUDE. 

until  the  fine  was  paid.  Every  square  inch  of  their  property 
was  taken  from  them,  and  the  high  sheriff  of  Galway,  being  a 
man  of  moderate  means,  and  having  been  fined  £1,000,  died 
in  jail  because  he  was  not  able  to  pay  the  unjust  imposition. 
More  than  this,  not  content  with  threatening  the  juries  and 
coercing  them,  my  Lord  Strafford  went  to  the  justices  and  told 
them  that  they  were  to  get  four  shillings  on  the  pound  for  the 
value  of  every  single  piece  of  property  that  they  confiscated, 
and  he  boasted  publicly  that  he  had  made  the  chief  baron 
and  the  judges  attend  to  this  business  as  if  it  were  their  own 
private  concern!  This  is  the  kind  of  rule  the  English  historian 
comes  to  America  to  ask  the  honest  and  upright  citizens  of 
this  free  country  to  endorse  by  their  verdict,  and  thereby  to 
make  themselves  accomplices  of  English  robbery.  In  the 
same  way  this  Strafford  instituted  another  tribunal  in  Ireland 
which  he  called  the  Court  of  Wards,  and  do  you  know  what 
this  was  ?  It  was  found  that  the  Irish  people,  gentle  and 
simple,  failed  to  become  Protestants.  I  have  not  a  harsh 
word  to  say  to  any  of  the  Protestants,  but  I  do  say  that  every 
high-minded  Protestant  in  the  world  must  admire  the  strength 
and  fidelity  with  which  Ireland,  because  of  her  conscience, 
clings  to  her  ancient  faith,  believing  it  true.  This  tribunal  was 
instituted  in  order  to  get  the  heirs  of  Catholic  gentry  and  to 
bring  them  up  in  the  Protestant  religion,  and  it  was  to  this 
court  of  awards  that  was  owing  the  significant  fact  that 
some  of  the  most  ancient  and  best  names  in  Ireland — the* 
names  of  men  whose  ancestors  fought  for  faith  and  fatherland 
— are  now  Protestants  and  the  enemies  of  their  Catholic  fel 
low-subjects.  It  was  by  this,  and  such  means  as  this,  that  the 
men  of  my  name  became  Protestants.  There  was  no  drop  of 
Protestant  blood  in  the  Red  Earl  or  the  Dun  Earl  of  Clanri- 
carde.  There  was  no  drop  of  such  blood  in  the  heroic  Burkes 
who  fought  in  the  long  500  years  before  this  time. 

There  was  no  Protestant  blood  in  the  O'Briens  of  Munster 
or  in  the  glorious  O'Donnells  and  O'Neills  of  Ulster  ;  yet 
they  are  Protestants  to-day.  Let  no  Protestant  American 
citizen  imagine  that  1  speak  with  disdain  of  his  religion,  but  as 
a  historian  it  is  my  duty  to  point  out  the  means,  which  every 
high-minded  man  must  brand  as  nefarious,  by  which  the  aris- 
tocracy of  Ireland  were  led  to  change  their  religion.  The 
Irish  meantime  waited,  and  waited  in  vain,  for  the  fulfilment 
of  the  king's  promise  and  the  concession  of  "  the  graces,"  as 
they  were  called.  At  length  matters  grew  desperate  between 
Charles  and  his  Parliament,  and  in  the  year  1G10  he  again 
gave  his  promise  to  the  Irish  people,  and  he  call-id  a  Parlia- 


TUlUD  LBi  iliu:.  bi 

ment  which  gave  him  four  subsidies,  8,000  men   and    I 

horse,  to  fight  against  the  Scotch,  who  bad 

him.     Strafford  rejoiced  that   he  bad  got  th 

this  body  of  men,  but  no  - 

than  the  Parliament,  now  in  rebellion,  took  him,  and 

■rune  year,  1640,  Strafford's  head  was  cut  off  and   be  would 

be  a  strange  Irishman  that  would  regret  it. 

Meantime  the  people  of  Scotland  rose  in  arm..]  rebellion 
against  their  king.     They  marched  into  England,  and  wh 
you  think  they  made  by  the  movement  I    Th  I  full 

enjoyment  of  their   religion,   which    wa 
Presbyterian.     They    got    £300,000,    and     . 
months  £850  a  day  to  support  their  army.    Then  they  reJ 
iuto  their  own  country,  after  achieving  the  purpose  for 
they  revolted.     Meantime  the  loyal  Catholics  of  Ireland 
being  ground  in  the  very  dust.     What  wonder,  I  ask  yo  .. 
it   that  they   counselled    together  and   said:    "The  king   is 
afraid  of  the  Parliament,  though  personally  inclined  to  grant 
graces   which  he  has  plighted  his  royal  word  to  grant, 
evidence  is  that  if  free  he  would  grant  these  cono  ssions 
promised.     But  the  king  is  not  free,"  said  the  Irish,  "1 
Parliament   has  rebelled   against  him.     Let    us    rise    in    the 
king's  name  and  assert  our  rights."    They  rose  in  1641   like 
one  man — every  Irishman  and  Catholic  in  Ireland  rose,     On 
the  23d  of  October,  1641,  they  all  rose,  with  the  ei 
the  Catholic  lords  of'  the  pale.     I  will  give  you  thi 
their  rising,  as  recorded  in  the  "  Memoirs  of  Lord   (   . 
haven,"  a  lord  by  no  mean-  prejudiced  in  lavor  >■(  Ireland  : 

"The  Irish  rose  for  six  reasons;  first,  1 a 

erally  looked  down  to  as  a  conquered  nation,  seldom  or 
trusted  after  the  manner  of  free-born  sub; 

Here,  dear  friends,  is  th''  tir>t  reason  given  by  this  Ei 
lord,  that  the  Irish  people  rose  after  the  English  people  t. 
them  contemptuously,     When  will  England  learn  to  treat  ber 
subjects  or  friends  with  common  resp<   I  I     When  will  those 
proud,  stubborn  Anglo-Saxons  condescend  to  form  and  i  b 
an  acquaintance  with  those  around  them  .'     I  said  it  in  my 
first,  repeated  it  in  my  seoon  !.  l<  Cture,  and   say  it   in  this,  that 
it  was  thi-  contempt  as  much  as  the  hatred  of  Englishmen  for 
Irishmen  that  li.-s  at  the  r  •-■•  of  the  bitt  ir  spi  il 
that  exists  between  those  two  nations.     'In   i      ndrea    i  given 
by  my  Lord  Castlehaven  i-  that  the  Irish  saw  that  six 
counties  in   Ulster  were   escheated  to  the  orown  and  n 
restored  to  the  natives,  b  .  by   James    I.   on  his 

countrymen,    the    Scotch.       The    third     reason    was     that     in 


62        FATHER  BUBKE'S  ANSWERS  TO  FROUDB. 

Strafford's  time  the  crown  laid  claim  to  Roscommon  and 
Galway,  and  to  some  parts  of  Tipperary,  Wicklow,  and 
other  portions  of  the  land.  The  fourth  reason  was  that, 
according  to  the  English  accounts  of  the  day,  war  was  declared 
against  the  Roman  Catholics,  a  fact  which  to  a  people  so  fond 
of  their  religion  as  the  Irish  was  no  small  matter,  no  small 
inducement  to  make  them  sober  and  quiet,  for  as  a  race  the 
Irish  people  are  very  fond  of  standing  by  their  religious  tenets 
and  adhering  to  their  religious  opinions.  The  fifth  reason  was 
that  they  saw  how  the  Scots,  by  making  a  show  of  pretended 
grievances  and  taking  up  arms  against  their  oppressors,  in 
order  to  procure  the  rights  to  which  they  were  justly  entitled, 
procured  the  rights  which  they  sought,  secured  the  privileges 
and  amenities  due  to  a  nation  anxious  to  assert  its  own 
cause,  its  own  independence ;  they  secured  £500,000  by  their 
visit  to  England.  And  the  last  reason,  that  they  saw  such  a 
misunderstanding  exist  between  the  king  and  the  Parliament, 
and  they  consequently  believed  that  the  king  would  grant 
them  anything  that  they  could  in  reason  demand,  or  at  least 
as  much  as  they  could  expect.  I  ask  you  were  not  those 
sufficient  grounds  for  any  claim  which  the  Irish  might  have 
made  at  the  time  1  1  appeal  to  the  people  of  America.  1 
speak  to  a  generous  people,  who  know  what  civil  and  religious 
liberty  means.  I  appeal  here  from  this  platform  to-night  for 
a  people  whose  spirit  was  never  broken  and  never  will  be.  1 
appeal  here  to-night  for  a  people  not  inferior  to  the  Saxon,  or 
to  any  other  race  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  either  in  gifts  of 
intellect  or  bodily  energy.  I  appeal  here  to-night  and  1  address 
myself  to  the  enlightened  instincts  of  this  great  land  for  a 
people  who  have  been  downtrodden  and  persecuted  as  our 
forefathers  were,  and  I  think  it  my  duty,  not  as  a  minister, 
but  as  a  historian,  to  stand  up  and  state  my  reasons,  believing 
that  I  have  sufficient  justification  to  do  so,  and  considering  the 
fact  of  the  accumulated  wrongs  that  have  been  heaped  upon 
Inland,  I  don't  think  I  would  be  doing  justice  to  myself  or  to 
my  country  if  I  didn't  take  advantage  of  this  opportunity  to 
reply  to  the  wrongs  that  have  been  heaped  upon  her.  An 
English  Protestant  writer  of  the  times,  of  that  very  year  1G41, 
says  that  they  had  sundry  grievances  and  grounds  of  complaint 
towelling  their  estates  and  consciences,  which  they  pretended 
to  be  far  greater  than  those  of  the  Scots,  for  they  thought  that 
if  the,  Scotch  acted  thus  to  save  a  new  religion,  it  was  a  reason 
that  they  should  not  be  punished  for  the  exercise  of  the  old. 

There  was  another  reason  for  the  revolt,  my  friends,  and  a 
very  potent  one.     It  was  this :  Charles  had  the  weakness  and 


THIRD    LBCTURB.  M 

the  foil v— I  cannot  call  it  anything  else— to  l<  b<  ad 

of  the  "Irish  Government  two  losd  jusi 
and  Sir  William  Parsons.    These  were  both  ardent   P 
and  partisans  of  the  Parliament    They  thought  that  be  would 
be  embarrassed  with  the  light  in  the  Parliament  and  i. 
men  in  Ireland,  so  these  men  lent  themselves  i<»  i" 
resistance.    Six  months  before  tin-  revoli   broke  out-Cha 
sent  them  word  that  he  had  received  notice  that  the  Irish 
coin"  to  rise.     They  took  no  notice  of  the  king'i  adv. 
ment.    The  lords  of  the  pale,  who  refused  to  join  the  Irish 
in  the  uprising,  betook  themselves  to  the  justices  in  1' 
for  protection,  and  it  was  refused  them.     Th 
permission  to  go  into  the  city  and  escape  the  Irish  rebellion, 
and  the  moment  the  Irish  chieftaina  cam.'  near  the  - 
the  English  king  their  castles  wore  declared  forfeited  aa  well 
as    their    estates,    and    so    the    Lords    of    Gormanstown    and 
Trimblcton  and  others  were  forced  to  join   handa  with 
Irish,  and   draw  their   swords   in   the  glorioua  can--   they  so 
applauded  and*  maintained.     They  were  forced  to  this. 
over  the  Irish  knew  that  their  friends  and  fellow-countr; 
were'  earning  distinction  and  honor  and  glory   upon  all    the 

battle-fields  of  Europe,  in  the  servi< f  Spain,  brance,  and 

Austria,  and  they  held,  not  without  reason,  that   these  theii 
countrymen   would   help   them    in    the    hour   «-t    their 
Accordingly,  on  the  23d  of  October,  1641,  tb  What 

was  the  first  thing  they  disaccording  to  Mr.  Froudel       he 
first  thin-  was  to  massacre  all  the  Protestanta  they  oould  lay 
hands  on?    Well,  my  friends,  this,  as  1  will  endeavor  to 
is  not  the  fact,     The  very  first  thing   that    their 
Phelim  O'Neill,  did  was  to  issue  a  proclamation,  on  th< 
day  of  the  rising,  in  which  he  declares  : 

''We  rise  in  the  name  of   our  lord   the  kin-;   we   r  ■ 

assert  the  power  and  prerogative  of  the  king;  we  declare  we 
do  not  wish  to  make  war  on  the  kin-  or  any  one  of  1. 
iects-  we  declare,  moreover,  that  we  do  not  ...tend  to  abed 
blood  except  in  legitimate  warfare,  and  that  any  .nan 
tribes  that  robs,  plunders,  or  sheda  blood  ahalll be  se verely 
punished"     Did  they  keepthia  declaration  ot  th, 
Liolabh      la— -tin  the  name  of  historj  thatti 
nScrV  of  the  Protestant.,  and  I  wUl  prove  itof  Pro1 
sonority.     We  find  a  despatch  from  the  Irish  Government  to 
Jhe  Government  in  England,  dated  25th  of  that  same  > 

to  which  they  give  an  2 unt  of  the  i  singol  their,., 

nrrevaaJmplaintastohowthelrish  5    ilt  wiih 

SSnt  feUow-dtiaena.    The,   took  their  cattle    boraea,  ari 


64  FATHBB    BURKE'S    ANSWERS   TO   FROUDE, 

property,  but  not  one  single  word  or  complaint  about  one 
drop  of  blood  shed.  And  if  they  took  their  cattle,  horses,  and 
property,  you  must  remember  that  the}  were  taking  back  what 
was  their  own.  A  very  short  time  afterwards  the  massacre 
began,  but  who  began  it?  The  Protestant  Ulster  settlers  Mod 
from  the  Irish.  They  brought  their  lives  with  them  at  least, 
and  they  entered  the  town  of  Carrickfergus,  where  they  found 
a  garrison  of  Scotch  Puritans.  Now,  in  their  terror  the  com- 
mon people  fled  to  Carrickfergus,  and  upon  a  little  island  near 
by  they  took  refuge.  They  congregated  there  for  purposes  ol 
safety  to  the  number  of  more  than  three  thousand.  The  very 
first  thing  this  garrison  did,  they  sailed  out  of  Carrickfergus  in 
the  night-time  and  fell  in  among  these  innocent  and  unarmed 
people,  and  they  slew  man,  woman,  and  child,  until  they  left 
mree  thousand  dead  bodies.  And  we  have  the  authority  of 
Leland,  the  Protestant  historian,  that  this  was  the  first  massa- 
cre committed  in  Ireland  on  either  side.  This  was  the  first 
massacre  !  How,  in  the  name  of  Heaven,  can  any  man  be  so 
learned  as  Mr.  Froude  and  make  such  untruthful  assertions  as 
he  has  advanced  ?  How  can  he,  in  the  name  of  history,  assert 
that  these  (the  Irish  people)  began  by  massacring  thirty-eight 
thousand  of  his  fellow-countrymen,  his  fellow  religionists, 
when  we  have  in  the  month  of  December,  four  months  after, 
a  commission  issued  to  the  Dean  of  Kilmore  and  seven  other 
Protestant  clergymen  to  make  sedulous  enquiry  about  those 
who  were  murdered  ?     Here  are  the  words  of  Castlehaven  : 

"The  Catholics  were  urged  into  rebellion,  and  the  lord 
justices  were  often  heard  to  say  that  the  more  in  rebellion 
the  more  lands  would  be  derived  (or  pilfered)  from  them." 

It  was  the  old  story,  the  old  adage  of  James  1. :  "  Root  out 
the  Catholics,  root  out  the  Irish,  and  give  Ireland  to  English 
Protestants  and  Puritans,  and  you  will  regenerate  the  land." 
But  from  such  regeneration  of  my  own  or  any  other  land  good 
Lord  deliver  us.  "  This  rebellion,"  says  Mr.  Froude,  "  began 
in  massacre  and  ended  in  ruin."  It  ended  in  ruin  the  most 
terrible,  and  if  it  began  in  massacre,  Mr.  Froude,  you  must 
acknowledge  as  a  historical  truth  that  the  massacre  was  on  the 
part  of  your  countrymen  and  your  chief  justices.  Thus  the 
war  began.  It  was  a  war  between  the  Puritan  Protestants  of 
Ulster  and  other  parts  of  Ireland,  aided  by  constant  supplies 
that  came  over  t'o  them  from  England.  It  was  a  war  that 
continued  for  eleven  years,  and  it  was  a  war  in  which  the  Irish 
chieftains  had  not  the  destinies  of  the  nation  in  their  own  hands, 
but  were  obliged  to  fight,  and  fight  like  men,  in  order  to  try 
to  achieve  a  bettoi  destiny  and  a  better  future  for  their  people. 


THIBD    LECTURE.  65 

Who  can  say  that  the  Irish  chieftains  did  hold  the  destin 
Ireland  in  their  hands  during  thoee  nine  yean  or  ui 
they  bad  to  fight  igaioet  boetiie  forces,  oae  after  the  othor, 
that  came  Baooeeaively  against  them  inflamed  with  relk 
bigotry,  hatred,  and  enmity  that  the  world  baa  <n  . 
seen  the  like  of  1     Then  Mr.  Froude  adds  that  th<  -• 
of  anarchy  and  slaughter.     Let  us  Bee  what  evidence  hi 
has  of  the  facts.     No  sooner  had   the  English  lords 
pale — who   were   all    Catholios — joined   the   Irish   than   they 
turned  to  the  Catholic  bishops  in  the  land.    Tbey  called  them 
together  in  a  synod,  and  on  the  10th  of  May,  1642,  the  bishops 
of  Ireland,  the  lords  of  Ireland,  and  the  gentry  and  oomm 
anil  estated  gentlemen  of  Ireland  met  together  and  founded 
what  was  called  the  Confederation  of  Kilkenny.     Am 
other  members,  they  selected  for  the  Supreme  Counoil 
archbishops,  two  bishops,  four  lords,  and  fifteen  commo 
These  men  were   to  meet   and   remain   in  perman 
watching  over  the   country,  making   laws,  watching  over  the 
army, and  above  all,  preventing  cruelty  and  murder.     A 
lar  Government  was  formed.     They  actually  established  B 
and  coined  their  money  for  the  Irish  nation.     They  established 
an  army  under   Lord  Mountcaahel,  under  Preston,  and  undei 
the  glorious  Owen  Koe  O'Neill.     During  the  first   month  they 
gained  some  successes.     Most  of  the  principal  cities  •  f  I 
opened  their  gates  to  them.      The  garrisons  were   carefully 
saved  from  slaughter,  and  the  moment  they   laid  down  their 
arms  their  lives  were  as  sacred  as  any  man's   in   the   ranks  nf 
the  Irish  armies.     Not  a  drop  of  unnecessary  Mood  was  shed 
bv  the  Irish.     In  reference  to  that  Supreme  Council,  I  defy 
any  man  to  prove  that  there  was  a  Bingfe  act  of  that  Supi 
Council  tor  the  purpose  of  promoting  bloodshed  or  slaughter. 
Now,  alter  a  few  months  BUCCess   the   armies  of  tie 

tion  experienced  some  reverses.    The  English  art 
upon  them,  and  the  command  was  given  to  Sir  Charles  C 

and  I  want  to  read  some  of  that  gentleman's   exploits  for  you. 

Bir  Charles  Coote's  exploits  in  Ireland  are  described  by  Claren- 
don in  these  words;  ••  Sir  Charles,   besides  plundering 
burning  the  town  of  Clontarf  at  that  time,  did  massacre  si 
of  the  towns-people,  men  and  women,  besides  Buckling 
and  i:  that  very  same  week  fifty-six  men, women, and  children 
in  the  village  of  Bullock,  being  frightened  at  what  was 

ftt  Clontarf,  went  to  sea  to  shun  tie  fir  , 

who  came  out  from  Dublin  mule;-  command  of  CoL  Clifford. 

Being  pursued  by  the  soldiers  hi 

and  thrown  overboard."     An  order  given  out  by  theauthori< 


56  FATHER    BORER'S    ANSWERS   TO    FROUDE. 

ties  then  in  power  commanded  to  kill,  slay,  and  destroy  &A 
belonging  to  the  said  rebels,  their  adherents,  and  relatives, 
and  to  destroy  the  towns  and  houses  where  the  rebels  had 
been  harbored.  This  order  was  given  out  at  the  Castle  of 
Dublin,  the  23d  of  February,  and  signed  by  six  precious 
names.  The  Irish  were  not  only  pursued  on  the  land,  but 
even  on  the  sea;  and  there  was  a  law  passed  that  if  any  Irish- 
men were  found  on  the  sea,  the  officers  of  his  majesty's  cruisers 
were  ordered  to  tie  them  back  to  back  and  throw  them  into 
the  sea,  and  the  king,  however  much  he  might  wish  to  do  so, 
had  no  power  to  interfere  without  being  charged  with  favoring 
the  rebels  of  Ireland. 

The  captains  that  committed  these  acts  of  cruelty  at  sea, 
instead  of  being  punished  for  it,  were  actually  rewarded,  and 
in  1634  a  Captain  Swanley  was  called  into  the  English  House 
of  Commons,  and  a  vote  of  thanks  was  given  him  and  a  chain 
of  gold  worth  £200  was  presented  to  him.  Another  one,  a 
Captain  Smith,  got  one  worth  £100.  In  fact,  I  am  ashamed 
and  afraid  to  mention  all  the  atrocities  inflicted  upon  the  Irish 
people  at  this  time.  Infants  were  taken  from  their  dead 
mothers'  bosoms  and  impaled  upon  the  bayonets  of  the  sol- 
diers, and  Sir  Charles  Coote  saw  one  of  his  soldiers  playing 
with  a  child,  throwing  it  into  the  air  and  then  spitting  it  upon 
his  bayonet  as  it  fell,  and  he  laughed  and  said  he  enjoyed  such 
frolic.  They  brought  children  into  the  world  before  their 
time  by  the  Ccesarian  operation  of  the  sword,  and  the  children 
thus  brought  forth  in  misery  they  sacrificed  in  the  most  cruel 
manner.  Yes,  such  are  the  facts,  my  friends.  I  am  afraid — 
I  say  again  1  am  afraid — to  tell  you  the  hundredth  part  of  the 
cruelties  of  those  terrible  men,  put  by  them  upon  our  race. 
Now,  1  ask  you  to  compare  this  with  the  manner  in  which  the 
Irish  troops  and  Irish  people  behaved.  A  garrison  of  seven 
hundred  English  surrendered  at  Naas,  and  the  Irish  command- 
ant surrendered  them  up  unharmed  and  uninjured,  on  condi- 
tion that  under  the  like  circumstances  the  English  would  do 
the  same  with  him.  An  Irish  party  capitulated  a  few  days 
afterward.  The  governor  of  the  town  and  all  the  party  were 
arrested  and  put  to  death.  Sir  Charles  Coote,  coming  down 
into  Munstcr,  slaughtered  every  man,  woman,  and  child  he 
met  on  his  march,  and  among  others  was  Philip  Ryan,  whom 
he  put  to  death  without  the  slightest  hesitation.  This  occurs 
in  Cart's  "  Life  of  Ormond."  Great  numbers  of  the  English, 
miraculously  preserved  in  those  days  through  the  instrumen- 
tality of  the  Irish,  were  suffered  to  go  into  the  County  of  Cork 
by  the  courtesy  and  kindness  of  the  \nhabitants  of  Cashel. 


TUIRD   LBOXUES.  61 

In  1049  Cardinal  Renooini  was  sent  over  by   tlte   I 
preside  cv.t  tin-  Bupreme  I  lounoi]  of  the  *  kmfederatiou  or  Kil- 
kenny, and  about  the  same  time  news  oame  to  Ireland  that  the 
illustrious  Owen   Roe  O'Neill  had  landed  in  Ireland  on  the 
coast  of  Ulster.     This  man  was  our  of  the  m  liehed 

officers  of  the  Spanish  service,  and  be  landed  with  an  army 
with  which  he  met  the  English  genera]  and  engaged  In  ■  battle 
which  raged  from  the  early  morning  until  the  sunset,  and  the 
evening  saw  England's  arm)  flying  in  confusion,  and  thousands 

of  her  best  soldiers  were  stretched  upon  the  field,  while  the  Irish 
chieftain  stood  victorious  on  the  field  which  his  genius  and 
valor  had  won.  Shortly  after  this,  partly  through  the  treach- 
ery of  the  Irish  Protestants  and  partly  through  the  agetLOj  ol 
the  English  lords,  the  confederation  began  to  experiem 
most  disastrous  defeats,  and  the  cause  of  Ireland  again  was  all 
but  lost. 

In  the  year  1(540  Oliver  Cromwell  arrived  in  Ireland.  Mr. 
Froude  says,  and  truly,  that  he  did  not  come  to  make  war 
with  rose-water,  but  with  the  thick,  warm  blood  of  die  Irish 
people.  And  Mr.  Froude  prefaces  the  introduction  of  Oliver 
Cromwell  in  Ireland  by  telling  us  that  the  Lord  Protector 
was  a  great  friend  of  Ireland,  that  he  was  a  liberal-minded 
man  and  intended  to  interfere  with  no  man's  liberty  i  f  con- 
science; and  he  adds  that  if  Cromwell's  policy  had  been  car- 
ried out  in  full,  probably  1  would  not  be  here  speaking  to  you 
rf  our  difficulties  with  Ireland  to-day.  He  adds,  moreover, 
«hat  Cromwell  had  formed  a  design  tor  the  pacification  of 
Ireland  which  would  have  made  future  troubles  there  impossi- 
ble.  What  was  this  design?  Lord  Macaulay  tells  US  what 
this  design  was.  Cromwell's  avowed  purpose  was  to  end  all 
difficulties  in  Ireland,  whether  they  arose  from  the  land  ques- 
tion or  from  the  religious  question,  by  putting  a  total  and 
entire  end  to  the  Irish  race,  by  extripating  them  oil' the  i . 
the  earth.  This  was  an  admirable  policy  for  (he  pacification 
of  Ireland  and  the  creation  of  peace;  for  the  best  way  and  th-^ 
simplest  way  to  keep  any  manquiel  IS  to  cut  his   throat.      The 

dead  do  not  speak ;  the  dead  do  uot  move;  the  dead  do  not 
trouble  any  one;  and  Cromwell  came  to  destroy  the  Irish 
and  the  Irish  Catholic  faith,  and  so  put  an  end  at  "nee  • 
claims  for  laud  and  to  all  disturbances  arising  <>ut  of  re] 
perseeutirms.      Hut,  I  ask  this  learned   gentleman,  does   he 
imagine  that  the  people  of  America  are  either  so  Ignorant  or 
so  wicked  as  to  accept  the  monstrous  proposition   that  a  man 

who  came  into  Ireland  with  such  a  purpose  a-  this  oan  I 
clared  a  friend  of  the  real  interests  of  the  Irish] pie  ?     Decs 


58  FATHEB    B0BS.BS    ANSWJCRS    TO    FBOUDE. 

he  imagine  that  there  is  no  intelligence  in  America,  that  there 
is  no  manhood  in  America,  that  there  is  no  love  of  freedom  in 
America,  or  love  of  religion  and  of  life  in  America?  And  the 
man  must  be  an  enemy  of  freedom,  of  religion,  and  of  life 
itself,  before  such  a  man  can  sympathize  with  the  blood- 
stained Oliver  Cromwell.  These  words  of  the  historian  I 
regret,  for  they  sound  like  bitter  mockery  in  the  ears  of  the 
people  whose  fathers  Cromwell  came  to  destroy.  But  he  says 
the  Lord  Protector  did  not  interfere  with  any  man's  con- 
science. The  Irish  demanded  liberty  of  conscience.  "  1  in- 
terfere with  no  man's  conscience,  but  if  you  Catholics  mean 
having  priests  and  the  Mass,  you  cannot  have  this,  and  you 
never  will  have  it  as  long  as  the  English  Parliament  has  power 
to  prevent  it."  What  did  these  words  mean  1  Grant  Catholics 
liberty  of  conscience,  their  conscience  telling  them  that  their 
first  and  great  duty  is  to  hear  the  Mass ;  grant  them  liberty 
of  conscience,  and  then  deny  them  priests  to  say  Mass  for 
th  m.  But  Mr.  Froude  says,  "  You  must  go  easy.  1  ac- 
knowledge that  the  Mass  is  a  very  beautiful  rite,  but  you  must 
remember  that  Cromwell  thought  it  to  mean  a  system  that 
was  shedding  blood  all  over  Europe,  a  system  of  a  Church  that 
never  knew  mercy,  that  slaughtered  people  everywhere,  and 
therefore  he  was  resolved  to  have  none  of  it."  Oh  !  my  friends, 
if  the  Mass  was  a  symbol  of  slaughter,  Oliver  Cromwell 
would  have  had  more  sympathy  with  the  Mass.  And  so  the 
historian  seeks  to  justify  cruelty  in  Ireland  against  the  Catholics 
by  alleging  cruelty  on  the  part  of  Catholics  against  their  Pro- 
testant fellow-subjects  in  other  lands.  Now,  this  he  has 
repeated  over  and  over  again  in  many  of  his  writings,  and  at 
other  times  and  in  other  places,  and  1  may  as  well  at  once  put 
an  end  to  this.  Mr.  Froude  says:  "I  hold  the  Catholic 
Church  accountable  for  all  the  blood  that  the  Uuke  of  Alva 
shed  in  the  Netherlands."  But  Alva  fought  in  the  Nether- 
lands against  an  uprising  against  the  authority  of  the  state, 
and  the  Catholic  Church  had  nothing  to  do  with  Alva  shedding 
the  blood  of  the  rebels.  If  they  happened  to  be  Protestants, 
that  is  no  reason  to  father  their  blood  upon  the  Catholio 
Church. 

Mr.  Fruude  says  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  responsible  for 
the  blood  that  was  shed  in  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholemew 
by  Mary  do  Medicis  in  France.  I  deny  it.  The  woman  that 
gave  that  order  had  no  sympathy  with  the  Catholic  Church; 
she  saw  France  divided  into  factions,  and  by  intrigue  and 
villany  she  endeavored  to  stifle  opposition  among  the  people. 
Tidings  wera  sent  to  Rome  that  the  king's  life  was  in  terrible 


THIRD    LECTl-RH  69 

danger  and  that  that  life  had  been  preserved  by  Heaven,  and 
Koine  Bang  a  ••  Te  Deum  "  forthesafl  t  y  of  the  king  and  i 
the  blood  of  the  Huguenots.     Amongst  the  II   .  . 
were  (  atholics  that  were  slam  because  the)  w >f  the  oppo- 
site faction,  and  that  alone  proves  that  the  Catholio  Church 
was   not  answerable   for  the   shedding  of  that    blood.     The 
blood  that  was  shed  in  Ireland  at  this  particular  tin 
exclusively  on  account  of  religion;  for  when,  in  1643,  Charles 
made    a    treaty    or    a   cessation    of   hostilities   \siih   the    Iri^h 
through  the  Confederation  of  Kilkenny,  the  Ens        P       imeut, 
as  soon  as  they  heard  that  the  king  bad  ceased  hostilities  for  a 
time  with  his  Irish  Catholio  subjects,  at  once  came  in  and  Baid 
that  the  war  must  go  on;  we  won't  allow  hostilities  loo 
we  must  root  out  these  Irish   Papists,  or  else  we  will  incur 
danger  to  our  Protestant  Mends.      I  h    m  a  of  1643,  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Puritan  Houses  of  Parliament  in   England,  have 
fastened  upon  the  Protestant  religion   even  to    this  day    the 
formal  argument  and  reason  why   Irish   blood   Bhould  li 
torrents — lest  the   Protestant  religion  might    -.tier.      In  I 
days  of  ours,  when  we  are  endeavoring  to  put  away  all  - 
rian  bigotry,  we  deplore  the  faults  committed  by  our  lath- 
both"  sides.     Mr.  Fronde  deplores  that    blood  that  was  -1. 
well  as  1  do ;  but,  my  friends,  it  is  a  historical  question, a 
upon  historic  facts  and  evidences,  and    I  am    bound   to  appeal 
to  history  as  well  as  my  learned  antagonist,  and  to  discrimin- 
ate and  put  back  the  word  which  he  puts  out — that  (<  toleration 
is  the  genius  of  Protestantism."     All   this    I    say  with   reg 
1  am  not  only  a  Catholic,  but  a  priest ;  not  only  a  priest,  but  a 
monk;  not  only  a  monk, but 41  Dominican  monk, and  from  out 
the  depths  of  my  soul  I   repel  and   repudiate  the  principle  of 
religious  persecution  of  any  kind  in  any  land. 

Speaking  of  tin-   fifass,  Mr.  Fronde  says  that  the  ('allelic. 
Church  has  learned  to   borrow  one   beautiful  gem  from  the 
crown  of  her  adversary — Bhe  has  learned  to  respeel  the 
of  others.      I    wish  that  tin-  learned   gentleman's   statement 
would  be  more  proved  by  history,  and  I  much  desire  'hat  in 

speaking  those  words  he  had  Bpoken  historic  truths;    I. ut   1  ask 

him,  and  1  ask  every  Protestant,  in  what,  land  has  Protestant- 
ism ever  been  in  the  ascendant  without  persecuting 
who  wer?  around  them.     I  say  it  not  in  bitterness,  but  I  say  it 
simply  as  a  historic  truth.     1  cannot  find  an)  record  of  his 
any  time  during  these  ages  up  to  a  feu  -any  time 

when  the  Protestants  in   England,  in  Ireland,  in  Sweden,  in 
Germany,  or  anywhere  else,  gave   tie  •  r 

even  permission  to  live    wh-re  they  could  take  it  :  om  tin  r 


6C  FATHER    BURKE'S    ANSWERS   TO    FROU^K. 

Catholic  fellow-subjects.  Even  to-day  where  is  the  strongest 
spirit  of  religious  persecution  ?  Is  it  not  in  Protestant  Sweden, 
Protestant  Denmark  1  And  who  to-day  are  persecuting  ?  1 
ask,  Is  it  Catholics  ?  No  ;  but  Protestant  Bismarck  in  Ger- 
many. Oliver  Cromwell,  the  apostle  of  blessings  in  Ireland, 
landed  in  104'.*,  and  besieged  Drogheda,  defended  by  Sir 
Arthur  Aston  and  a  brave  garrison.  .Finding  that  their  position 
was  no  longer  tenable,  they  asked  in  the  military  language  for 
the  honors  of  war  if  they  surrendered.  Cromwell  promised  to 
grant  them  quarter  if  they  would  lay  down  their  arms.  Thy 
did  so,  and  the  promise  was  kept  until  the  town  was  taken. 
When  the  town  was  in  his  hands,  Oliver  Cromwell  gave  orders 
to  his  army  for  the  indiscriminate  massacre  of  the  garrison 
and  every  man,  woman,  and  child  in  that  large  city.  The 
people,  when  they  saw  the  soldiers  slaying  around  them  on 
every  side,  when  they  saw  the  streets  of  Drogheda  flowing 
with  blood  for  five  days,  flocked  to  the  number  of  one  thousand 
aged  men,  women,  and  children,  and  took  refuge  in  the  great 
church  of  St.  Peter's  in  Drogheda.  Oliver  Cromwell  drew 
his  soldiers  around  that  church,  and  out  of  that  church  he 
never  let  one  of  those  thousand  innocent  people  escape  alive. 
He  then  proceeded  to  Wexford,  where  a  certain  commander 
named  Stratford  delivered  the  city  over  to  him.  He  massa- 
cred the  people  there  also.  Three  hundred  of  the  women  of 
Wexford  with  their  children  gathered  around  the  great  market 
cross  in  the  public  square  of  the  city.  They  thought  in  their 
hearts,  cruel  as  he  was,  he  would  respect  the  sign  of  man's 
redemption  and  spare  those  who  were  collected  around  it. 
How  vain  the  thought !  Three  hundred  poor,  defenceless 
women,  screaming  for  mercy  under  the  cross  of  Jesus  Christ, 
Cromwell  and  his  barbarous  demons  slaughtered  without  per- 
mitting one  to  escape,  until  they  were  ankle-deep  in  the  blood 
of  the  women  of  Wexford. 

Cromwell  retired  from  Ireland  after  he  had  glutted  himself 
with  the  blood  of  the  people,  winding  up  his  word  by  taking 
80,000,  and  some  say  100,000,  of  the  men  of  Ireland  and  driving 
them  down  to  the  south  ports  of  Munster,  where  he  shipped 
them — 80,000  at  the  lowest  calculation — to  the  sugar  planta- 
tions of  the  Barbadoes,  there  to  work  as  slaves  ;  and  in  six 
years  from  that  time,  sifth  was  the  treatment  that  they 
received,  out  of  80,000  there  were  only  twenty  men  left. 
lie  also  collected  six  thousand  Irish  boys,  fair  and  beautiful 
stripling  youths,  put  them  on  board  ships  and  sent  them  off 
also  to  the  Barbadoes,  there  to  languish  and  die  before  they 
came  ♦>  manhood.     Great  God  !  is  this  the  man  that  has  aa 


THIRD   LXOTUBX.  *i 

apologist  in  the  learned,  the  frank,  the  courteous,  I 
mauls  historian  who  comes  in  oily  word*  to  tell  the  A 
people  that  Cromwell  was  one  of  the  bravest  men  that 
Lived,  and  one  of  the  best  friends  to  Ireland  I 

Father    Burke    then    reviewed    at    length    the    earn 
conducted    by    William   of   Orange   in    Ireland   against    Lug 
fath.-r-in-law*  James  the  Second.     When  William  arrived  In 
England  with  lo.OOO  men,  Jamea  fled.     Mr.   Frou 
th .t  he  abdicated.     I  challenge  him  to  prove  it.     There  if  no 
historical  evidence  to  show  that  King  Jamea  ever  relinqi 
his  title  to  the  crown  of  England.     But  the   English  people 
proved  false  to  him,  and  he  came  to  Ireland,  where  the  p 
rose  to  advocate  his  rights— fools  that  they  were  to  es] 
again  the  cause  of  a  Stuart  king  !     The  opposing  armies 
at  the  battle  of  the  Boyne.     Mr.  Fronde  asserts  that  th( 
troops  made  no  stand  there.     1    regret   that    be   has    bo  far 

forgotten  truth  and  candor  as  to  say  that  the  Irish  ra< v.-r 

showed   a  taint   of  cowardice.     What    are    the    foots  1     We 
have    full    and    definite   historical    testimony    to    prove 
William's  army  at  the  Boyne  mustered  51,000  veteran  troops, 
perfect  in  discipline,  well  equipped,  and  well  clothed,  with  fifty 
pieces    of  artillery,  besides    mortars.     The    Irish    army    that 
opposed    them    was   composed    of   23,000    raw    Irish    1 
hastily    organized,    imperfectly    drilled,    badly    arm.,1,    and 
having  only  six  pieces  of  ordnance  altogether.     The   English 
armv  was   commanded  bv  a  lion,  William  of  Orange,   who 
led  them  on  in  person.     The  Irish  army  was  commanded  by 
a  stag,  Shemus,  with  the  historic  name,  who  stood  on  a 
two  miles  away  from  the  scene  of  conflict,  with  a  guard  of 
picked  soldiers  around  hin  !     Mr.  Proude  says  that   the  Irish 
troops  made  no  stand  on  that  occasion.     We  have  the  testi- 
monvof  an  English  general  who  participated  in  the  r-onfliot, 
and  he  tells  us  that  these  raw  Irish  troopa  charged  down  ttn 
distinct   limes   on   the   overwhelming    force    that    met   them. 
Ten  distinct  times  did  thev  rusn  with  fury  valor  upon  the 
ranks  of  the  bravest  soldiers  in  Eurooe,     And  when  com] 
to  retreat,  they  did  so  in  good  order,  commanded  bj 
officers,  and  not  like  men  who  fled  before  they  had  itni        I 
blow.  .  f     , 

Father  Burke  then  went  on  to  paint  a  vivid  picture  ol  toe 
sieves  of  Limerick  and  Athlone,  describing  the  berolsm  of 
Sarsfield  and  his  companions  in  anna  :  the  memorable  dostruc- 
tion  of  the  bridges  over  the  Shannon,  twice  torn  down  in  he 
face  of  the  artillery  fire  of  all  the  English  batterietj  he 
famous  defence    of  "the    Breach"   at    Limerick,    where    ths 


62        FATHER  BURKE'S  ANSWERS  TO  FROUDB. 

women  fought  beside  their  husbands,  sons,  and  fathers,  and  h« 
paid  a  noble  tribute  to  the  high  honor  of  Sarsfield,  who  kept 
his  plighted  worl  in  the  treaty  sa  inviolably  as  became  an 
Irishman,  while  the  English  tore  the  same  treaty  to  shreds 
ere  it  was  forty-eight  hours  signed.  After  presenting  one 
more  instance  of  Protestant  toleration  in  the  person  of  the 
Protestant  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  who  on  the  Sunday  succeed- 
ing the  capitulation  of  Limerick  preached  that  historic  sermon 
"  On  the  sin  and  the  sinfulness  of  keeping  an  oath  plighted  to 
Catholics." 

I  feel,  my  friends,  that  I  have  detained  you  too  long  upon  a 
subject  so  dreary,  and  so  desolate  a  ground  to  travel  over.  I, 
for  my  part,  never  would  have  invited  you,  citizens  of 
America,  or  my  fellow-countrymen,  to  enter  upon  such  a 
desolate  waste,  to  renew  in  my  heart  and  in  yours  this  terrible 
story,  if  Mr.  Froude  had  not  compelled  me  to  lift  the  veil  and 
to  show  you  the  treatment  that  our  fathers  received  at  the  hands 
of  the  English.  I  do  it  not  at  all  to  excite  national  animosity, 
and  not  at  all  to  excite  bad  blood.  1  am  one  of  the  first  who 
would  say  "  Let  bygones  be  bygones,"  "  Let  the  dead  bury  the 
dead ; "  but  if  any  man,  I  care  not  who  he  be,  how  great  his 
reputation,  how  grand  his  name  in  any  walk  of  learning — if  any 
man  dares  to  come,  as  long  as  I  live,  to  say  that  England's 
treatment  of  the  Irish  was  just,  was  necessary,  was  such  as  can 
receive  the  verdict  of  the  honest  people  of  any  land,  or  dares 
to  say  that  either  at  home  or  abroad  Irishmen  have  ever 
shown  v;he  white  feather — if  I  wer"*-  «>*v  my  death-bed,  I  would 
rise  to  contradict  him. 


FOURTH  LECTURE. 


.ALUE8    AND    UENTLEMEN" 


I  have  perceived  in  the  ;  repapers  that  Mr.  Froule 

seems  to  be  somewhat  irritated  by  th<'  remarks  i 
his  accuracy  as  a  historian.     Lest   any  word  of  mine  might 
hurt  in  the  least  degree  the  just  susceptibilities  of  an  h 
ble  man,  1  beg  beforehand  to  say  that  nothing  is  further  from 
my  thoughts  than  the  slightest  word  either  <'i'|><: 
disrespect  fur  one  who  has  won  for  himself  so  high  a  a  . 
the  English  historian.     Therefore  I  merely  hope  that  it 
any  word  which  may  have  fallen  from  mo,  even  in  the  hi 
our  amicable  controversy,  that  has  given  the  Least  off! 
that  gentleman.     Just  as  1  would  expect  to  receive  from  him, 
or  from  any  other  learned  and  educated  man,  the  treatment 
which  one  gentleman  is  supposed  to  show  to  another,  so  do  1 
also  wish  to  give  him  that  treatment, 

Now,  my   friends,  we  come   to  the   matter   in   hand.     The 
last  thing  I  did  was  to  traverse  a  great  portion  of  our  previous 
history  in  reviewing  the  statements  of  the  English 
and  one  portion  1  was  obliged  to  leave  almost   untouched. 
One  portion  of  that  sad  history  is  included   in  th 
Queen  Anne,  that  estimable  lady  of  whom  hisl  La  tha 

unwomanly  vice  "fan  overfondnes 

the  English  throne  in  1702,  after  the  demise  of  William  "f 
Orange,  and  she  sat  upon  that  throne  until  1711.     As  I  before 
remarked,  there  was, perhaps,  sufficient  reason  that  the  Roman 
Catholics  of  Ireland,  trodden  as  they  were  in  the  verj 
should  expect  some  quarter  from  th«-  daughter  of  'he  man  for 

whom  they  had  shed  their  blood,  and  the  granddaughl 
the  other  Stuart  king  for  whose  cause  they  had  fought  wi 
much  bravery  in  1449.     But  the  Irish  Cath  i 

good  Lady  Anne  a  return  quite  of  another  kind  from  what 

might  with  reason   have   ex; ted.      Not    content    ■•  lb.   the 

breach  of  the  articles  of  Lfr&eririk  of  which  h<  th*i 

in-law,  William,  had  been  guilty — not  content   with 
cious  penal  Laws  which  kept  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  in  grovel 
ling  misery,  Anne  went  further.     She  appointed  a  n<  ■■    Lord 
Lieutenant,  the  Duke  of  Ormond,  and  no  ««>oner  did  he  assume 


64  FATHER    BURKE'S    ANSWERS   TO    FROUDE. 

his  powers  than  the  Irish  Protestants  fell  on  their  knees  b^foie 
him  and  begged  him  to  save  them  from  their  foes,  the  desperate 
Catholics.  Great  God  !  A  people  who  had  been  robbed, 
persecuted,  decimated,  until  there  was  hardly  a  miserable 
remnant  left,  without  a  vote  in  the  election  of  the  humblest 
board,  without  a  voice  in  the  transaction  of  the  humblest  busi- 
ness, without  power,  influence,  or  recognized  existence — and 
of  this  people  the  strong  Protestant  body  in  Ireland  complained 
as  being  dangerous.  And  so  well  were  these  complaints  heard, 
my  friends,  that  we  find  edict  after  edict  coming  out,  declaring 
that  no  Papist  shall  be  allowed  to  inherit  land  or  possess  land, 
or  even  have  it  under  a  lease  ;  declaring  that  if  a  Catholic  child 
wished  to  become  a  Protestant,  that  moment  that  child  became 
the  owner  and  the  master  of  his  father's  estate,  and  his  father 
remained  only  a  pensioner  or  tenant  for  life  upon  the  bounty 
of  his  own  apostate  son ;  declaring  that  if  a  child,  however 
young,  even  an  infant,  became  a  Protestant,  that  moment  that 
child  was  to  be  removed  from  the  guardianship  and  custody 
of  the  father,  and  was  to  be  handed  over  to  some  Protestant 
relation.  Every  enactment  that  the  misguided  ingenuity  of 
the  tyrannical  mind  of  man  could  suggest  was  put  in  force. 
"  One  might  be  inclined,"  says  Mr.  Mitchell,  "  to  suppose  that 
Popery  had  already  been  sufficiently  discouraged,  seeing  that 
the  clergy  had  been  banished,  the  Catholics  were  excluded  by 
law  from  all  honorable  and  lucrative  employments,  carefully 
disarmed  and  plundered  of  almost  every  acre  of  their  ancient 
inheritance.  But  enough  was  not  already  done  to  make  the 
Protestant  interest  feel  secure.  Consequently  laws  were  sanc- 
tioned by  her  Majesty  Queen  Anne  that  no  Catholic  could  go 
near  a  walled  town,  especially  Limerick  or  Galway.  In  order 
that  they  might  be  sure  not  to  get  near  a  walled  town,  they 
were  to  remain  several  miles  away,  as  if  they  were  lepers 
whose  presence  would  contaminate  their  select  and  pampered 
Pi  otestant  fellow-citizens." 

All  through  Queen  Anne's  reign  police  and  magistrates 
were  hounded  on  to  persecute,  and  informers  were  tempted 
with  ample  bribes.  A  price  was  paid  for  executing  these 
atrocious  laws,  and  the  Catholic  people  of  Ireland  were  follow- 
ed up  as  if  they  were  ferocious  and  untamable  wolves.  But, 
my  friends,  Mr.  Froude  pretends  to  justify  this  persecution, 
and  on  two  grounds.  I  may  not  hope  to  change  Mr.  Froude's 
opinion,  but  I  hope  to  convince  the  people  of  this  country  that 
there  was  no  excuse  for  the  shedding  of  the  Irish  people's 
blood  by  unjust  persecution,  upheld  by  legal  enactment.  Not 
a  word  of  sympathy  has  he  for  the  people  thus  treated — not  a 


Form  H   1  .!■:«  j  i  u,  ga 

word  of  manly  |  uns1  the  shedding  of  that  people1! 

blood — by  unjust   persecution  and  l>y  the  robbery  • 
actment;  but  lit."  says  there  were  two  reasons  for  th 
action  of  the  British  Government.     The  6rs(  is,  he  says,  that 
after  all  these  were  only  retaliation  for  the  terril 
iion  that  was  suffered  by  the  Protestant  Huguenots  in  Fi 
He  says:     "The  Protestants  of  Ireland  were  onlj 
the  example  of  Louis  XIV.,  who  revoked  the  E 
Let  me  explain  this  Bomewhat  to  you.    The  Edi<  I  of  Nan 
a  law  that  gave  religious  liberty  to  the  French  Pi 
well  as  the  French  Catholics.   It  was  a  law  founded  in  jusl  I 

was  a  law  founded  in  the  sacred  rights  that  belong  to  man  ;  but 
this  law  was  revoked,  and  consequently  the   rrol 
France  were  laid  open  to  persecution.     But  there  is  this  differ 
ence  between  the  French  Protestants  and  the  I  !atholi<  -  of  Ire 
land — the  former  had  not  their  liberty  guaranteed  to  them  by 
treaty;  the  Irish  Catholics  had  their  liberty  guaranteed  them  by 
the  Treaty  of  Limerick,  a  treaty  which  they  won  by  their  own 
brave  hands  and  swords.     The  Edict  of  Nantes  was  unjustly  re- 
voked, but  that  revocation  was  no  breach  of  any   rdyal   word 
plighted  to  them.     The  Treaty  of  Limerick  was  broken  to  tin 
Catholics  of  Ireland,  and  in  the  breach  of  it  the  King  of  England, 
the  Parliament  of  England,  the  aristocracy  of  England,  as  well 
as  the  miserable  Irish  Protestant  faction  at  homo,  I 
jurersin  the  history  of  the  world.     Here  are  the  words  of  the 
celebrated  Edmund  Burke  on  the  subject  of  the  revocation  of 
this  very  edict:  "This  act  of  injustice,"  says  the  great  Irish 
statesman,  "  which  Let  loose  on  the  monarchy  of  Louis  XIV. 
such  a  torrent  of  invective  and   reproach,  and  which  thi       « 
dark  cloud  over  the  splendor  of  a  most  illustrious  reign,  falls 
far  short  of  the  cast;  of  Ireland."     Remember  that  be 
English  statesman,  of  Irish  birth,  and  a  Protestant,  W  DO  »|>'-.iks. 
But,  my  friends,  the  privileges  which  the  Profc 
enjoyed  and  lost  by  the  revocation  were  of  a  far  wider  i  b 
ter  than  the  Irish  Catholics  ever  pretended  to  aspire  to.    The 
Edict  of  Nantes  condemned  those  who  returned  to  Protestant- 
ism having  once  renounced  it.     Its  revocation  did  not  subject 
the  Protestants  to  any  such  persecution  as  thai 
Irish  Catholics.     The  estates  of  Protestants  w<  ibject 

to  confiscation  when  they  quitted    the  kingdom. 
none  of  the  compli'-atid  machinery  I  have  referred  to  in  my 
description  of  the  Irish  persecution.     Then  it  .should    be  re- 
mambered  that  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  did  not 
by  any  means  affect  as  Large  a  body  of  people  as  the  | 
laws  in  Ireland,  when  one  portion  or  the  population  was  living 


66  FATHER    BURETS    ANSWEE8   TO   FUOUDE. 

on  the  spoils  of  a  much  more  numerous  portion.  Side  by  side 
with  the  Protestants  of  France  compare  the  Irish  people, 
ruined,  beggared,  and  hunted  to  the  death ;  and  the  English  his- 
torian says  :  "  We  have  only  served  you  as  your  c ^religionists 
in  France  served  us."  The  other -reason  he  gives  to  justify 
this  persecution  was  that  the  Irish  Catholics  were  in  favor  of 
the  Pretender.  Now,  to  that  statement  1  can  give  and  do  give 
a  most  emphatic  denial.  The  Irish  Catholics  had  had  quite 
enough  shedding  of  their  own  blood.  They  had  no  interest 
whatever  in  the  succession,  nor  cared  they  one  iota  whether 
the  Elector  of  Hanover  or  the  son  of  James  II.  succeeded  to 
the  throne  of  England,  for  they  knew  whether  it  was  a  Hano- 
verian or  a  Stuart  that  ruled  in  England  the  prejudice  of  the 
English  people  would  make  him,  whoever  he  was,  a  tyrant 
over  them  and  over  their  nation. 

Thus  the  persecution  went  on,  law  after  law  being  passed  to 
make  perfect  beggary  and  ruin  of  the  Irish  people,  until  at 
length  Ireland  was  reduced  to  such  a  state  of  misery  that  the 
very  name  of  an  Irishman  was  a  reproach,  and  until  at  length  a 
small  number  of  the  glorious  race  had  the  weakness  to  change 
their  faith  and  to  deny  the  religion  of  their  fathers.  The  name 
of  an  Irishman  was  a  reproach.  My  friends,  Dean  Swift  was 
born  in  Ireland,  and  he  is  looked  upon  as  a  patriotic  Irishman, 
yet  he  said  :  "  1  no  more  consider  myself  an  Irishman  because 
I  happened  to  be  born  in  Ireland  than  an  Englishman  chanc- 
ing to  be  born  in  Calcutta  would  consider  himself  a  Hindoo." 
He  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  he  would  no  more  think  of 
taking  the  Irish  into  account  than  he  would  think  of  consulting 
swine.  •  Macaulay  gloats  over  the  state  of  the  Catholics  in 
Ireland,  and  even  Mr.  Froude  views  not  without  some  compla- 
cency their  misery.  Macaulay  calls  them  "  Pariahs."  He 
said  they  had  no  existence,  no  liberty,even  to  breathe  in  the  land, 
and  that  land  their  own  !  and  that  even  the  Lord  Chancellor 
in  an  English  court  and  in  an  Irish  court,  laying  down  the  law 
of  the  kingdom  coolly  and  calmly,  said  that  in  the  eye  of  the 
lav)  no  Catholic  was  supposed  to  exist  in  Ireland.  Chief  Justice 
Robinson  made  a  similar  declaration  :  "  It  appears  plain  that 
the  law  docs  not  suppose  any  such  person  to  exist  as  an  Irish 
Roman  Catholic ; "  and  yet  at  that  very  time  we  find  that 
Irishmen  proclaimed  their  loyalty,  and  said  :  "  Look  at  the 
Catholics  of  Ireland,  how  loyal  they  are !"  Yet,  according  to 
Mr.  Froude,  we  were  all  at  this  very  time  for  the  Pretender. 
We  find  at  this  very  time  an  Irishman  of  the  name  of  Pheliin 
O'Neill,  one  of  the  glorious  old  line  of  Tyrone,  changed  his 
•eligion  and  became  a  Protestant,  but  at  the  same  time,  seeing 


FOUETII    LECTURE.  6T 

the  strangeness    that    any   O'Neill    shotl  l    P 

changed  his  nam.'  also  and  called  himself  Mr.   Fells   Neill. 
A  good  deal  has  been  sai.l  and  written  about  Dames  and  t h<ir 
sounds.     Felix  made  his  name  rhyme  with  "slippery 
and  an  old  friar  wrote  some  famous  Latin  verses  about  him, 
calling  him  >(  Infelis   Felix,  who  had  forgotton  the  ship,  the 
salmon,  and  blood-red  Hand,  and  blushed  when  called  ON    U 
in  his  own   land!*'     But,  my  friends,  the   English 
ant  ascendency  in  Ireland,  seeing  how  that  tie;,  ha  I 
penal  law  they  could  ask  for,  Beeing  that  the  :  that 

remained  for  them  was  utterly  to  exterminate  the  I 
and  they  had  nearly  accomplished  it.  and  would  have  killed 
them  all,  only  that  the  work  was  too  much,  and  that  there  was 
a  certain  something  in  the  old  blood  and  in  the  old  race  that 
still  terrified  them  when  they  approached  it  —and  se<  ing  that 
there  were  so  few  Catholics,  they  thought  that  now  at  least 
their  hands  were  free,  and  frothing  remained  for  them  bul  to  I 
Ireland,  as  Mr.  Froude  said,  a  "  garden."     They  set  to  work  and 
had  their  own  Parliament,  and  a  Catholic  could   D 
them.      But  they  were  greatly  surprised  to  find  that,  now  that 
the  Catholics  were  crushed  into  the  very  earth,  England  began 
to  regard  the  very  Cromwellians  themsel  ta  of  hatred. 

What!  they,  the  sons  of  the  Puritans;  they,  the  brave  men 
who  had  slaughtered  so  many  of  the  Catholic  religion;  is  their 
trade,  commerce,  and  Parliament  to  be  interfere  1  with  ?  Ah  ! 
now  indeed  Mr.  Froude  finds  tears  and  weeps  them  over  the 
injustice  and  folly  of  England,  land  interfered 

with  the  commerce  and  trad.-  of  the  Pi  endency  in 

Ireland.     These  Protestants   were    first-class   woollen    I 
facturers,  because  the  wool   of  the   [rish   sheep   was  so  line. 
The  English  Parliament  made  laws  that  the  English  traders 
were  not  to  make  any  more  cloth  to  go  into  foreign  markets 
to  rival  their  English  fellow-workmen.    Mr.  I 
these  laws,  in  his  lecture,  to  the 

that  time  happened  to  be  under  the  dominion  of  a  Blavish  set 
of  money-jobbers,   and    paltry,   pitiful    merchant 
accident  according  to  him— an  action,  he  aays  (and  with 
trii'h),  which  so  discontented  the  Prot<  stant  faction  In  I 
that  many  of  them  emigrated  to  America,  and  there  tt»  . 

Tied   their   hatred    with  them,  which    was  one  day  tO   break   up 

the  British  Empire, 

I  have  another  theory  on  this  great   question.      I  hold  that  it 
was    no    accident    of    the    hour    at    all    that    mad 
place  her  restrictive  laws  upon  the  Irish  woollen  trade.     I  hold 
tiiat  it  was  the  settled  policy  of  England.    These  men  who 


68  FATHER   BTTRKB'S    ANSWERS   TO   FROUDB 

were  now  in  the  ascendancy  in  Ireland,  imagined  that  because 
they  had  ruined  and  beggared  the  ancient  race  that,  they 
would,  therefore,  be  regarded  as  friends  by  England.  1  hold 
that  it  was  at  that  time,  and  in  a  great  measure  is  to-day,  the 
fixed  policy  of  England  to  keep  Ireland  poor,  to  keep  Ireland 
down,  to  be  hostile  to  Ireland,  no  matter  who  lives  in  it, 
whether  Protestant,  whether  Norman,  Cromwellian,  or  Celt. 
The  law  restricting  the  trade  on  woollens  was  passed.  The 
planters  and  the  sons  of  planters  were  beggared,  simply 
because  they  had  a  part  in  Ireland  and  an  interest  in  the 
welfare  of  the  country.  The  inimitable  Swift,  speaking  on 
this  very  subject,  quoted  the  fable  of  Pallas  and  Arachne. 
Pallas  heard  that  a  certain  young  virgin  named  Arachne  could 
spin  well.  Pallas  met  her  in  a  trial  of  skill,  and  finding 
herself  surpassed,  changed  her  to  a  spider,  and  sentenced  her 
to  spin  for  ever  from  her  own  bowels  and  in  a  small  compass. 
"  I  always  pitied  poor  Arachne,"  said  Swift,  "  and  could  never 
love  the  goddess  for  this  cruel  and  unjust  sentence.  Ireland 
-has  been  treated  worse  than  Arachne.  She  had  permission  to 
spin  from  her  own  bowels,  which  we  have  not."  This  sentence 
was  fully  executed  upon  us  by  England,  but  with  greater 
•severity.  They  left  us  no  chance  for  spinning  and  weaving. 
The  Irish  wool  was  famous.  The  English  were  outbid  for  it 
by  the  French.  So  a  law  was  passed  forbidding  its  exporta- 
tion ;  they  took  it  themselves  and  paid  their  own  price  for  it. 
The  dean  goes  on  to  say  that  oppression  makes  a  wise  mac 
mad,  and  that  the  reason  why  the  men  in  Ireland  are  not  mad 
is  that  they  are  not  wise.  But  oppression,  in  time,  might 
teach  a  little  wisdom  to  even  these.  We  call  Swift  a  patriot. 
How  little  did  he  think  of  the  oppression  that  beggared  and 
ruined  our  people,  that  drove  them  from  their  lands,  from 
every  pleasure  of  life  and  from  their  country,  and  all  because 
they  had  Irish  names  and  blood,  and  would  not  give  up  the 
faith  that  their  conscience  told  them  was  right!  Now,  my 
friends,  Mr.  Froude  in  his  lecture  comes  at  once  to  consider 
tin  consequences  of  that  Protestant  emigration  from  Ireland. 
lie  says  the  Protestant  manufacturers  of  Ireland  and  the 
workmen  were  discontented  and  came  to  America,  and  then 
he  begins  to  enlist  the  sympathies  of  America  upon  the  side 
of  the  Protestant  men  who  came  over  from  Ireland.  If  he 
stopped  here,  I  would  not  have  a  word  to  say  to  the  learned 
historian.  When  the  Englishman  claims  the  sympathy  01 
this  or  any  other  land  for  men  of  his  blood  and  of  his  religion, 
if  the)-  are  deserving  of  that  sympathy,  I,  an  Irishman,  am 
uhvays  tH  first  to  grant  it  to  them  with  all  ray  heart.     And 


FOURTH    LKCTIRE.  69 

therefore  I  do  not  find  the  slightest   fault,  with  th  s  learned 
Englishman  when  he  challenge 
the   Orangemen   of  Ireland   who    cami 
men  deserve  the  sympathy  of  America,  w  hy  not  let  then  have 
it?     I>ut  Mr.  Froude  went  on  to  say  that 
sympathy  for  the  Protestant  emigrants  from  Ireland,  as  !■  . 
of  American  liberty,  the  Catholics,  on  the  other  ! 
crawling  to  the  foot  of  the  throne  and  telling  King  George  111. 
that  tb*;v  would  be  only  too  happy  to  go  out  at   his  command 
and  shed  American  blood  in  his  cause,     [a  that  statemi  i  I  I 
or  not?    This  learned  historian  quoted   a  petition   thai 
presented  to  the  king  in  the  year  1775  by  Lord   Fingal   and 
other  noblemen.     In  that  petition  he  states   Lord   Finga 
several  other  Catholic  noblemen   spoke   in  th  F  the 

Irish  people,  pronouncing  the  American  revolution  an  unnatural 
rebellion,  and    expressing   a   willingness    to   g  i   out    for   the 
suppression  of  American  liberty.      First    I   ask  at   what  time 
were  Lord  Fingal,  Lord  Hope,  Lord  Kenmare,  and  the  other 
Catholic  lords  of  the  pale  authorized  to  speak  in  the  nan 
the  Irish  people?     Their  presence   in  Ireland,  although 
kept  the  faith,  was  a  cross,  a  hindrance  and  a  stun 
to  the  Irish  nation,  and  the  Irish  people  know  it  well.     1  do 
not  doubt  Mr.   Froude's  word,    but    being  only  anxious    to 
satisfy  myself  by  strict  research,  I  have  looked  'ion. 

I  find  a  petition  in  Currey's  collection  signed   by  Lorn    1 
and  a  number  of  Catholic  noblemen,  and  in  which  they  ; 
their  loyalty  in  terms  of  the  most  slavish  adulation.     B   I    I 
am  not  able  to  discover  a  single  word   about  the  American 
revolution,  or  expressing  any  desire  to  destroy  the  litx  i 
of  America.     Not  one  word.     1  have  Bought,  and  my  !' 
have  sought,  in  every  document  that  was  at  our  hands  for  this 
petition.     I  could  not  find  it.     Then-  is  a  mistake  some* 
It  is  strange  that  a  petition  of  so  much  importance  shoul 
have  been  published  among  the  documents  of  the  time.     The 
learned  historian's  resources  are  far  more  ample  than   mine, 
resources  of  time,  talent,  and  opportunity.     No  doubt   he  will 
be  able  to  explain  this.    This  petition  must  have  passed  through 
Sir  John  Bladder's  hands,  then  to  the  Lord   Lieutenant,  from 
him  to  the  Prime  Minister,  and  from   him   to  the  king.      We 
have  an  old  proverb  which  show:-,  how  we  manage  these  things 
in  Ireland:  ;'  Speak  to  the  maid  to  speak  to  the  mistr 
speak  to  the  master." 

Now  we  come  to  the  year  1775.  The  Catholics  of  Ireland 
had  no  voice  in  the  government;  they  could  not  so  much  as 
vote  for  a  parish  beadle,  much  less  ibr  a  member  of  parlia. 


70  FATHER    BT7RKR  S    ANSWERS   TO   FROUUB. 

rnenv.  And  does  Mr.  Froude  tell  the  American  people  that 
these  unfortunate  people  would  not  have  welcomed  the  cry 
that  came  from  across  the  Atlantic  1  It  was  the  cry  of  a 
people  who  proclaimed  the  truest  liberty  of  men  and  o. 
nations  ;  who  proclaimed  that  no  people  upon  the  earth  should 
be  taxed  without  representation,  and  who  gave  the  first  blmv, 
right  across  the  face,  to  English  tyranny  that  that  tyrant  tud 
received  for  many  years — a  blow  before  which  England 
reeled,  and  which  brought  her  to  her  knees.  Does  he  mean  to 
tell  you,  citizens  of  America,  that  such  an  event  as  this  would 
be  distasteful  to  the  poor  Irish  Catholics  in  Ireland  ?  It  is 
true  that  they  had  crushed  them  as  far  as  they  could,  but  they 
had  not  taken  the  manhood  out  of  them.  Now,  here  ax-e  the 
facts  of  this.  Lord  Howe,  the  English  general,  in  that  very 
year  of  1775,  writes  home  to  his  Government  from  America, 
and  says :  "  Send  out  German  troops  from  England,"  which, 
in  other  words,  meant  Hessians.  1  don't  make  use  of  this 
feeling  with  the  slightest  tincture  of  disrespect.  1  have  the 
greatest  respect  for  the  German  element  in  this  country. 
Certain  it  is,  however,  that  in  those  days  Hesse  Cassel  and 
Hesse  Darmstadt — the  people  of  those  States — were  hired 
out  by  every  other  country  to  fight  their  varied  battles. 
"  Send  me  out  German  troops,"  said  Lord  Howe,  "  for  in  a 
war  against  America  and  the  American  people  I  cannot  depend 
on  the  Irish  people,. because  a  subjugated  but  unsubdued  race 
are  too  much  in  unison — they  have  too  much  sympathy  foi 
the  people  of  America.  The  Irish,"  said  he,  "  are  not  to  bt 
depended  upon."  They  sent  out  four  thousand  troops  from 
Ireland,,  But  listen,  my  friends,  to  this — but  listen  to  this : 
Arthur  Lee,  the  agent  of  America  in  Europe,  writes  home  to 
his  Government  in  1777,  and  says  that  "  the  resources  of  our 
enemy  are  annihilated  in  Germany,  and  their  last  resort  is  to 
the  Catholics  of  Ireland.  They  have  already  experienced  their 
unwillingness  to  go.  Every  man  of  a  regiment  raised  there 
last  year  obliged  them  to  ship  him  tied  and  bound."  Honor 
to  the  Irish  Catholic  soldiers'  hearts  that  when  they  were  to 
be  sent  to  America  to  cut  the  throats  of  and  scalp  the  Ameri- 
can people  they  swore  they  would  not  do  it,  and  they  had  to 
tie  them  and  carry  them  on  board.  But  Lee  goes  on  to  say, 
"  And  more  certainly  they  will  desert  more  than  any  other 
troops."  Lowder  tells  us  that  the  war  against  America  waa 
not  over  popular,  even  in  England.  But  in  Ireland  he  says 
the  people  assumed  the  cause  of  America  from  sympathy. 
Let  us  leave  Ireland  and  come  to  America.  Let  us  see  how 
the  great  man  who  was  building  up  a  magnificent  dynasty  in 


FOURTH    I.KCTrRK. 


71 


this  country  regarded  the  Irish  people,     I  refer,  mj   t.  ends, 
to  the  immortal  patriot  and   Father  of  bis  I 
Washington.     In  1790  George  W« 
from  the  Catholics  of  America,  signed  b)    Bishop  I 
Maryland,  and  a  great  many  others,     in  reply  to  tfa  it  ad 
the  response  this  magnificent  man  (Washington)  n 
these  words:  "I  hope  to  see  America  free  and  ran 
the  foremost  nations  of  the  earth  in  examples  oi  j 
liberality,  and   1  presume  that  you,  fellow-citizens,  wil 
forget  the  patriotic  part  which  you  Irish  took  in  the  » 
plishraent  of  cur  rebellion  and  the  establishment  oi 
eminent,  and  in  the  valuable  assistance  which  ■ 
» nation  professing  the  Catholic  religion."     In  the  mo* fa  -t 
December,  1781,  the  friendly  Bona  of  St.  Patrick  in  Philadelphia 
elected  Washington  a  member  of  their  socfety.    These  men 
wereereat  friends  of  die  great  American  Father  d  lust  .... 
When  his  army  lay  at  Valley  Forge,  twenty-seven  mem 
of  this  society  subscribed  between  them,   in   1780    103 
pounds  sterling  of  Pennsylvania  currency  for  the  American 
troops     George  Washington  accepted  the  affiliation  with  their 
societv      «  1  a°ccept  with  singular  pleasure  the  ensign  ■ 
friendly  a  societv  as  that  of  the  Sons  of  St.  Patrick,  s  « 
distinguished  for  "the  firmest  adherence  to  our  cause.       »«"*« 
that  time  what  greater  honor  could  be  bestowed  1,    • 
ton  than  he  bestowed  upon  the  Irish  I 

When  Arnold,  whose  name  is  handed  down  tor 
cration,  proved  a  traitor,  Washington  was  obliged 
the  very  best  soldiers  in  the  army  to  send  to  H 
From  Ms  whole  army  they  selected  the  celebrated  Peunsyl. 
vania  Line,  as  they  were  called,  and  these  troops  were  mamly 
m:lde  up  of  Irishmen.     Nay.  more;  not  ,.,, y  ...  1  roteeUnt 
Wshmen,  or  of  those  who  in  that  day  were  called  Soot*  b  Irish, 
whfcfa  diLated  Mr.  Fronde's  friends  who  from 

5££     iSJ  over  the  muster-roll  of  this 
fi^ch  names  as  DufiV,  McGulre,  and  O'B  eeeare 

oate^no?^ Palatines^ the  ^l^fJfi&X 
0f  thoroughbred  Irishmen.  They  fought  and  b*ed  r«  Wa  a- 
incton.  and  he  loved  them.  ,  , 

%  d  now,  my  friends,  1  want  to  ,ive  v.,,  a  little  nddent  in 
thfhistorv  of  that  celebrated  corps  f  the  Pennsylvan*  I 

America      During  the  Americai    Revolution,  as   M 
Worms  us  these   Irish-American  soldiers,  who  * 
fj^'e  Smt  the  wrongs  of  ti  ■■«  t *eir  b, 

those  of  the  country  ..f  th-.r  ad  T«i..n.  I,  r:,.n-  d..,-.,   •  «,  1  «4 


72        FATHER  BURKE'S  ANSWERS  TO  FROUDE. 

what  they  conceived  to  be  the  neglect  of  the  Government 
towards  them.  Everywhere  around  they  saw  the  people  in 
wealth,  and  comfort,  and  affluence,  while  they  themselves 
were  spilling  their  blood  for  the  country  which  would  relieve 
neither  their  nakedness  nor  their  hunger.  On  the  frozen 
roads  they  marked  their  march  with  the  blood  that  trickled 
from  their  shoeless  feet,  and  they  were  half  naked  in  the  midst 
of  winter.  They  petitioned ;  they  appealed  to  Congress ; 
they  remonstrated  ;  and  at  last,  stung  beyond  endurance  by 
their  suffering,  they  mutinied.  When  the  English  commandei 
heard  this,  he  was  overjoyed,  and  he  wrote  home  to  England, 
saying  that  the  Rebellion  (as  he  called  it)  would  soon  be 
crushed.  Lord  Howe  sent  his  agents  to  confer  with  the 
mutinous  Pennsylvania  Line,  giving  them  a  free  card  to  make 
any  terms  whatever  that  could  induce  the  starving  Irish  sol- 
diers to  go  over  to  the  British  side.  The  Pennsylvania  Line 
seized  and  bound  the  agents  of  the  British  general  and  sent 
them  to  the  tent  of  Washington  S 

There  was  no  Judas,  no  Arnold  among  them.  They  defied 
the  tempters  while  they  trampled  on  their  shining  gold,  and 
these  miserable  wretches,  the  English  spies,  paid  the  forfeit  of 
their  lives  for  attempting  to  seduce  these  illustrious  heroes. 
About  Irishmen  and  Irish  patriotism  there  was  no  falsehood. 

Mr.  Froude  seems  to  think  that  the  American  people  look 
upon  the  Irish  nation  with  a  certain  amount  of  disrespect  and 
disesteem.  On  this  question,  and  in  reference  to  our  people, 
take  the  testimony  of  George  W.  Parke  Custis,  the  adopted 
son  of  Washington.  He  says  :  "  The  Irishmen  at  that  time 
and  before,  even  though  they  were  themselves  struggling  for 
emancipation,  lent  all  their  support  to  this  country."  This  is 
what  the  great  American  gentleman  says  of  them  in  reference 
to  an  appeal  which  they  made  for  aid:  "And  why  is  this 
imposing  appeal  from  poor  Ireland,  whose  generous  sons  in 
the  days  of  our  infancy,  and  during  our  struggle  for  independ- 
ence, shared  in  our  glory  and  shared  in  our  misfortunes,  and 
shared  in  our  successes.  They  shared  in  all  the  storms  of 
political  strife  that  beset  this  once  unhappy  but  now  happy 
land.  Yes  ;  the  Irish  people,  in  the  fervency  of  their  enthusi- 
asm, have  always  in  their  heart  cherished  one  great  idea  of 
respect  for  this  country,  and  in  the  magnificent  outpouring  of 
their  hearts  their  lips  have  never  ceased  to  utter  in  time  of 
need  the  musical  ejaculation,  '  God  save  America !'  This  is 
true,  because  we  have  always  received  from  Ireland  more  help 
and  needed  assistance  than  we  ever  received  from  any  Euro- 
pean nation."     Again  he  says  : 


rOUBTfl   LBOTUBB.  71 

«  To-day  the  ^i -ass  baa  gron 
»  poor  Irishman  who  died  for  Amerioa  before  anj  on 
assembled  was  born.     In  the  war  of  (he  Revolution  in  this 
country,  Ireland  furnished  one  hundred  men  to  air. 
furnished  by  any  foreign  nation." 

The  same  high  authority,  the  adopted  son  of  W 
ever  entertained  the  heartiest  sympathy  an  I 
the  veteran  Irish  soldiers  of  the  Revolution.     Hewai 
ed  to  welcome  them  into  his  own  house,  there  to  treat  them 
with  kindness  and  esteem  ;  and  he  tells  us  of  one  aged  survi- 
vor whom  he  invited  in,  ami  who,  while  holding  thl 

glass  offered  to  him,  said :  ••  Let  me  drink  to  General  Wash- 
ington, who  is  a  saint  in   heaven  this  day."     On   an 
memorable   occasion   the  same  eminent  Amerioan  pa] 
following  tribute  to  Ireland  : 

11  Recall  to  your  minds  the  recollections  <>f  the  b 
when  Irishmen  were  our  friends,  and  when  they  wrere  through- 
out the  whole  world,  no  matter  ui.  d,  the  friends  of 
our  interest,  the  supporters  of  our  independence.     L 
the  period  that  tried  the  souls  of  men  <>n   this  soil,  and  yon 
will  find  that  the  sons  of  Erin  rushed  to  our  ranks,  and  ana 
the  clash  of  steel  there  was  many  a  John  Byrne  who  was  not 
idle."     He  does  not  say  Gibbs,or  Spragg,  or  any  <  !romw 
name  of  the  kind.     Let  me  tell  y<>u  who  this  John  Byrn 
A  certain  Irish  prisoner  was  p"t  on  hoard  of  a  Bhip 
left  in  chains  in  the  bow  of  a  ship,  pestilence  being  on  l>"ar.l ; 
he  was  more  than  half  starved,  and  was  aoaroelj  alive  when 
summoned  on  deck  to  have   sentence   pronounced,  in  - 
quence  of  the  cruelty  inflicted  on  him.     And  then  the  Iv 
commander  offered  him  plenty  of  money  and   liberty  if  he 
would  give  up  the  cause  which  he  had  espoused,  which 
was  the  American  cause,  and  join  the  British  army.    With  a 
hand  scarcely  able  to  lift  up  he:  opened  his  mouth  and  lit! 
vehemently  with  all  the  force  he  could  command,44  Hurrah  for 
America!"     In  the  presence  of  such  facta  as  these, 
by  ho  Less  eminent  men  than  George  Washington  and  h 
Mr.  Froude  might  as  well  speak  t.>  the  hurrioani 
head  as  tr;.                   Dm  the  Irish  people  the  sympathy   of 
America!    Dr.  MoNeven,  in  the  year  1809, speaking  of  the 
war  with  England,  says  in  relation  to  'his  oiroumsta 

"One  of  the  matters  charged  on  the  Irish,  and  one  of  the 
many  pretexts  for  refusing  redress  to  the  Catholioa  of  Ireland, 

was  that  16,0 f  them  fought  or  the  side  of  Ameri<  a.    Man? 

more  thousands  are  ready  to  maintain  thi  n   of 

American  Independence." 


J  4        FATHER  BDBKE'S  ANSWERS  TO  FROUDK. 

Now,  iny  friends,  there  are  other  testimonies  to  justify  oui 
race.  We  have  the  testimony  of  American  literary  gentlemen, 
Buch  for  instance  as  that  of  Mr.  Paulding,  and  here  are  his 
words  : 

"The  history  of  Ireland  exhibits  from  fust  to  last  a  detail  of 
the  most  persevering,  galling,  grinding,  insulting,  and  syste- 
matic oppression  found  anywhere  except  among  the  helots  of 
Sparta.  There  is  not  a  national  feeling  that  has  not  been 
insulted,  and  not  a  national  right  that  has  not  been  trodden 
under  foot.  As  Christians  the  people  of  Ireland  have  been 
denied  the  exercise  of  the  Catholic  religion,  venerable  for  its 
antiquity,  admirable  for  its  unity,  and  the  chord  by  which  the 
people  are  bound  together  in  harmony.  As  men  the  Irish 
people  have  been  deprived  of  the  common  rights  of  British 
subjects,  under  the  pretext  that  they  were  incapable  of  enjoying 
them,  which  pretext  had  no  other  foundation  except  their 
resistance  to  oppression.  England  has  denied  them  the  means 
of  improvement,  and  then  insulted  them  with  the  imputation 
of  barbarism." 

Another  distinguished  American — Mr.  Johnson,  for  instance 
— says  he  has  never  observed  such  severity  as  that  exercised 
over  the  Catholics  of  Ireland.  This  is  a  gentleman  whose 
name  stands  high  in  the  literary  record  of  America.  Take 
again  the  unanimous  address  of  the  Legislature  of  Maryland. 
Those  American  legislators  say  :  "  A  dependency  of  Great 
Britain,  Ireland,  is  lying  languishing  under  an  oppression  re- 
probated by  humanity  and  discountenanced  by  just  policy. 
It  would  argue  ignorance  of  human  rights  to  submit  patiently 
to  this  oppression.  The  Senators  have  witnessed  the  struggle 
of  Ireland,  but  with  only  poor  success.  Rebellions  and  insur- 
rections have  gone  on  with  but  little  instances  of  tranquility. 
America  has  opened  her  arms  to  the  oppressed  of  all  nations. 
No  people  have  availed  themselves  of  the  asylum  with  mora 
alacrity  or  in  greater  numbers  than  the  Irish.  High  is  the 
meed  of  praise  which  the  Irish  feel  for  the  gratitude  of  Ame- 
rica. As  heroes  and  statesmen  they  honor  their  adopted 
country."  Until  such  glorious  words  as  these  are  wiped  out 
of  the  record  of  American  history,  until  the  generous  senti- 
ments that  have  inspired  them  have  ceased  to  be  a  portion  of  the 
American  nature,  then,  and  not  before  then,  will  Mr.  Fronde 
get  the  verdict  which  he  seeks  from  America.  I  have  looked 
through  the  American  archives,  and  1  find  that  the  foundation 
of  that  sympathy  lies  in  the  simple  fact  that  the  Catholics  of 
Ireland  were  heart  and  soul  with  you  in  that  glorious  struggle. 
I  find  a  letter  from  Ireland  in  September,  1775,  to  a  friend  in 


FOURTH    LKCTtRK.  7  J 

Now  York,  in  which  the  gentleman  writing 

the  people  here  wish  well  to  the  cause  in  which  yo 

gaged.    They  are  receiving  recruits  throughoul  this  kingdom, 

but  the  men  are  told  that  they  are  onlj  Edinburgh 

to  learn  military  discipline  and  are  then  to  return.'1 

had  to  tell  them  a  lie  first,  well  knowing  that  if  they  told  I 

the  truth  they  would   never  cuter   the    ranks   of  the    B 

army  to  fight  against  Americans.     In   177."*  tl 

mond  makes  this  statement :  u  Attempts  have  been  ms 

enlist  Irish  Roman  Catholics,  but    the    Ministry    know 

that  these  attempts  have  been  unsuccessful."      \  M 

Roche  was  sent  down  to  Cork  to  recruit,  and  h<-  made  a  *] 

to  them  beginning,  "The  glorious  nationality  to  which  they 

belonged,  the  splendid  monarchy  that  governed  them;"  in 

almest  the  very  words  that  Mr.  Froude  alleges  to  bav< 

used  by  Lord"  Fingall  were  used  by  Major  R 

poor  men,  and  he  then  held  the  golden  guinea  and  the  pound 

before  them,  but  none  could  be  induced  to  fight  against  their 

American  brothers.     Writing  to  the  Bouse  of  Commons  in 

the  year  1779,  Mr.  Johnson  says  :  <•  I  maintain  that   the 

of  the  best  and  wisest  men  in  this  country  are  on  the  Bide  of 

the  American  people,  and  that  in  Ireland   th 

majority  on  the  side  of  the  Americans."     In    the   Souse  of 

Lords,  in    the   same   year,   the    Duke    of    Richmond 

"  Attempts  have  been  made  to  enlist  the  Irish  1 1 

These  attempts  have  proved  unsuccessful."      We  find  again 

the  American  Congress,  in  the  memorable  year  1775,  taking 

action  in  the  matter.     Congress  sent  over  the  Atlantic  waves 

assistance  to  the  down-trodden  Catholic  Irish. 

I  now  come  to  another  honored  name  and  find  the  testimony 
of  Verplanck.     When  the  Catholic  Emancipation  was  | 
there  was  a  banquet  in  New  York  City  to  celebrate  the  event, 
and   this   distinguished    American    proposed    a   toast  :    -'The 
Penal    Laws:   requiescat  in    pact— may    they    rest    in     | 
And  now  that  they  are  gone,  I  1. 
them."     What  was  that  good  word  ?     Here  it   is:  ••  B 
ihat  glorious  struggle  for  independence  and  in  our  more 
contest  for  American  rights  those  laws  gav<    to  America  the 
support  of  hundreds  and  thousands  of  brave  beartl 
arms."    Two  of  America's  great  II 

and  William  II.  Seward,  have  given  substantial  pi 
sympathy   for   Ireland,  and    have   shown    that    In 
deserved  it  of  America.     I  now  come 
question  in  this  discussion— tho  volunl 
of  the  formation  of  the  volunteers  was  the  determine* 


76        FATHER  BDBKES  ANSWERS  TO  FBOUDB 

the  English  Government  to  send  over  to  Ireland  regiments  of 
Hessians  tc  take  the  place  of  the  soldiers  that  had  been  sent 
from  there  to  America,  and  the  Protestant  Irish  said  that  they 
would  have  none  of  them,  and  from  this  sprang  the  volunteers 
of  82.  Mr.  Froude  had  had  little  to  say  of  them,  and  conse 
quently  in  answering  him  he  would  restrict  himself  also  in 
that  regard.  In  1770  Ireland  began  to  arm,  but  the  movement 
was  altogether  Protestant.  But  we  find  that  the  Catholics  of 
Ireland,  ground  as  they  were  to  the  dust,  no  sooner  did  they 
hear  that  their  Protestant  oppressors  were  anxious  to  do  some- 
thing for  the  old  land  than  they  came  to  them  and  said  :  "  We 
forgive  everything  you  ever  did  to  us  ;  we  leave  you  the  land, 
our  country,  and  our  wealth,  and  our  commerce ;  all  we  ask 
of  you  is  put  a  gun  into  our  hands  for  one  hour  of  our  lives." 
This  they  were  refused,  and,  my  friends,  when  the  Catholic 
Irish — when  they  fuund  that  they  would  not  be  allowed  to 
enter  the  ranks  of  the  volunteers,  they  had  the  generosity  out 
of  their  poverty  to  collect  money  and  hand  it  over  to  clothe 
and  feed  the  army  of  their  Protestant  fellow-citizens.  Any. 
thing  for  Ireland.  Anything  for  the  man  that  would  lift  his 
hand  for  Ireland,  no  matter  of  what  religion  he  was.  The  old 
generous  spirit  was  there,  the  love  that  never  could  be  extin- 
guished was  there,  self-sacrificing,  ample  love  for  any  man,  no 
matter  who  he  was,  that  was  a  friend  to  their  native  land. 
But  after  a  time  our  Protestant  friends  and  volunteers  began 
to  think  that  these  Catholics  were  capital  fellows ;  somehow 
centuries  of  persecution  could  not  knock  the  manhood  out  of 
them,  and  accordingly  we  find  in  1780  there  were  50,000 
Catholics  amongst  the  volunteers,  every  man  of  them  with 
arms  in  his  hand. 

Mr.  Froude  says  that  Grattan — the  immortal  Grattan — whilst 
he  wished  well  for  Ireland,  whilst  he  was  irreproachable  in 
every  way,  public  or  private,  that  at  this  time  he  was  guilty 
of  a  great  mistake  ;  that  England  had  long  ruled  Ireland  badly, 
but  she  had  been  taught  a  lesson  by  America,  and  she  was  now 
anxious  to  govern  Ireland  well,  and  no  sooner  was  an  abuse 
pointed  out  than  it  was  immediately  remedied ;  and  the 
mistake  Grattan  made  was,  instead  of  insist^  on  just  legis- 
lation from  England,  he  insisted  on  the  independence  of  Ireland, 
and  that  the  Irish  people  should  make  their  own  laws;  that 
the  energies  of  the  nation,  which  were  wasted  in  political 
faction,  could  have  been  husbanded,  and  England  would  have 
been  induced  to  grant  just  and  fair  laws  ;  but  he  goes  on  the 
assumption,  my  dear  American  friends — the  gentleman  goes  ot 
Uie  assumption  that  England  was  willing  to  redress  grievances, 


fourth  lecture.  77 

to  repeal  the  bad  laws  and  make  good  ones,  and  he  n.ak 

assertion  by  saving  that  she  struck  off  the  ••• 

merchants  the  chains  of  their  commercial  si  1 

to  Ireland  her  trade.     You  remember  that  tfa 

away  tVoin  them.     Now,  1  wish  for  the  honor  of  I.  gland  that 

she  \\a>  as  generous,  or  even  as  just,  as  Mr.  Froud< 

her,  and  as  he  no  doubt  would  wish  her  to  be;   but  we 

the  fact  before  us  that  in  1779,  wh<  d  a  motion  w 

repeal  the  laws  restricting  the  commerce  of  Ireland, 

Parliament,  the  English  king,  and 

of  Ireland  opposed  it  to  the  very  death.     They  rou 

it;    not  a   letter   would   they  strike   oil*  even    of  th 

the  Protestants  and  planters  of  1 1 <  land  ;  and  it  was  onlj  when 

Grattan  rose   up  in   the  Iriah  Parliament  and  ii 

Ireland    should   get    back    her    trade,   it    was    only    then   that 

England  consented  to  listen,  because  there  were  50,< 

teers  armed  outside.      The  policy  of  trade  interf< 

continued,  and  serious  as  it  was,  it  was  but  an  iota  of  the  w 

inflicted.     No  Irishmen  were  recognized   but  Protestanl 

men.     All   others  were   men  excluded    from    the    1-  Dch,  the 

bank,  the  exchange,  the  university,  the  I 

and   so  on.     When,  then,  the  English  king  and  Parliament 

and  aristocracy  were  bound  to  have  this  thing  go  on,  it 

righteous  act  tor  Grattan  to  rise  in  tht  Senate  and  BWear  before 

heaven  that  it  should  cease.     As  (irmly  was  the  oath  that  it 

should  not  cease  retorted,  and  while  Grattan  worked  within 

he  had  50,000  volunteers  drawn  up  in  th< 

give  weight  to  his  arguments.     Bitter  then  was  the  son 

the  English  when  a  member  whose  position  Bhould  I 

him  better — Ilussey  de   Burgh — seconded  Grattai 

and  Ireland's  commercial  and  legislative  freedom  wi 

Protestant  bigotry,  the  many-headed  monster,  had  now  1 

to  think  it  would"  be  proper  to  reform  the  Btate,     ii    Henry 

Grattan  said  :  "  1  never  will  claim  this  while  thousands  1  f  D  y 

cojntrymen   are  in   chains;   give  them    the   |  'urn 

members  to  Parliament,  and    put   an   end   to   the 

boroughs;  let  the  members  represent  the  peo]  1  will 

have   reformed    your    Parliament    and    I 

liberties    which     the    volimb  I  •        I 

would  not  hear  of  reform,  because  they  wanted 

venal  and  corrupt  Government. 

It  was  to  this  fact  and  not  to  any  misstatement  that  w< 
the  collapse  of  that  magnificent  resurrection  in  the  moveu      i 
of  1600.     When  William  Pitt  came  to  office  b 
to  put  an  end  to  this  difficulty  and  unite  the  two  Pi    lam 


78  FATHER    BURKETS    AXSWEB6   TO   FK0UD3. 

into  one.  This  being  the  programme,  how  was  it  to  be 
worked  out  ?  Mr.  Froude  stated  that  the  rebellion  of  '98  was 
one  of  those  outbursts  of  Irish  ungovernable  passion  and  ol 
Irish  inconstancy.  Mr.  Froude  said  that  rebellion  arose  out 
of  the  disturbance  of  men's  minds  created  by  the  French 
revolution,  which  set  all  the  world  ablaze,  and  the  flames 
spread  no  doubt  to  Ireland,  and  that  the  Irish  Government 
was  so  hampered  by  the  free  Parliament  their  hands  wero 
bound.  The  rising  of  1798  took  place  on  the  2od  of  May, 
and  on  that  day  the  United  Irishmen  arose.  As  early  as  1797 
the  country  was  beginning  to  be  disturb?d,  and  during  the 
months  of  February  and  March  Lord  Moira  said  in  the  House 
of  Lords ; 

"  I  have  seen  in.  Ireland  the  most  absurd  and  disgusting 
tyranny  that  any  nation  ever  groaned  under.  I  have  myself 
seen  it  practised  and  unchecked,  and  the  effects  that  resulted 
were  such  as  I  have  stated  to  your  lordship.  1  have  seen  in 
that  country  a  marked  distinction  between  the  English  and 
the  Irish.  I  have  seen  troops  full  of  this  prejudice,  and  every 
inhabitant  of  that  is,  and  is  a  rebel  to  the  British  Government." 
Their  treatment  of  the  Irish  was  cruel  in  the  extreme. 
They  persecuted  them  until  Irish  blood  could  stand  no  more, 
until  Irishmen  would  have  been  poltroons  and  servile  cowards 
to  have  yielded  without  a  determined  and  forcible  assertion  of 
their  rights.  (The  lecturer  continued  his  description  of  the 
outrages  encouraged  by  English  tyranny  and  practised  by  the 
troops,  and  closed  that  portion  of  the  narrative  with  the  re- 
mark, which  brought  great  outcries  of  enthusiasm  from  the 
audience)  :  And  all  this  occurred  before  the  rising  actually 
took  place,  and  this  cour«e  was  pursued  with  the  view  of  pro- 
voking  the  great  rebellion  which  followed.  1  ask  you,  in  all 
this  goading  of  a  people  into  rebellion,  if  the  infamous  Govern- 
ment which  then  ruled  Ireland  was  not  to  blame.  Were  the 
Irish  responsible  when  the  myrmidons  of  England  were  let 
loos3  upon  them,  violating  every  principle  of  honor  and 
decency  %  Did  they  not  goad  them  into  the  rebellion  of  1798  ? 
Mr.  Froude  says  several  hot-headed  priests  put  themselves  at 
the  head  of  the  people.  There  was  Father  John  Murphy,  who 
came  home  from  his  duties  one  day  and  found  his  house 
burned,  his  chapel  destroyed,  and  his  unfortunate  parishioners 
hudcHcd  about  the  blackened  walls  of  the  chapel.  "  Where 
are  we  to  fly  ?  "  they  cried.  Father  John  Murphy  got  some 
pikes  put  them  in  their  hands,  and  himself  at  their  head. 
Here  you  see,  Mr.  Froude,  there  are  two  sides  to  every  story. 
I  have  endeavored  to  give  you  some  portions  of  the  Irish  sida 


of  thii  stoiy,  reating   ana    beari  ujkjii  the 

records  of  Protestant  and  English 
mony  which  1  have  been  proud  to 

and  generous  American  people,     1  have  t<>  apologize  for  the 
dryness  of  the  subject  and  tin-  Imperfect  manner  in  «rh       I 

have  treated  it,  and  also  fur  the  unconscionab 
which  1  have  tried  your  patience.     On  next 

we  shall   be  approaching  ticklish  ground — 1  ■   toe 

Union,  Ireland  to  day,  and   Ireland  us  my  heart  and  brain  telle 
me  that  she  will  be  in  some  future  time. 


FIFTH  LECTURE. 


Ladies  and  Gentlemen  : 

On  this  day  a  paragraph  in  a  newspaper,  the  New  York 
Tribune,  was  brought  under  my  notice,  and  the  reading  of  it 
caused  me  much  pain  and  anguish  of  mind.  It  recorded  an 
act  of  discourtesy  to  my  learned  antagonist,  Mr.  Froude,  sup- 
posed to  have  been  offered  by  Irishmen  in  Boston.  In  the 
name  of  the  Irishmen  in  America  J  tender  to  the  learned  gen- 
tleman my  best  apologies.  1  beg  to  assure  him  for  my  Irish 
fellow-countrymen  in  this  country  that  we  are  only  too  happy 
to  offer  to  him  the  courtesy  and  hospitality  which  Ireland  has 
never  refused,  even  to  her  enemies.  Mr.  Froude  does  no* 
come  amongst  us  as  an  enemy  of  Ireland,  but  he  professes  that 
he  loves  the  Irish  people,  and  I  believe  him.  When  I  read  in 
the  report  of  his  last  lecture,  which  1  am  about  to  answer 
to-night,  that  he  Mould  yield  to  no  man  in  his  love  for  the 
Irish  people,  I  was  reminded  of  what  O'Connell  said  to  Lord 
Derby  on  a  similar  occasion.  When  the  noble  lord  stated  in 
the  House  of  Lords  that  he  would  yield  to  no  man  in  his  great 
love  for  Ireland,  the  "  Tribune"  arose  and  said  :  "  Any  man  that 
loves  Ireland  cannot  be  my  enemy ;  let  our  hearts  shake 
hands."  1  am  sure,  therefore,  that  I  speak  the  sentiments  of 
every  true  Irishman  in  America  when  I  assure  this  learned 
English  gentleman  that  as  long  as  he  is  in  this  country  he  will 
receive  from  the  hands  of  the  Irish  citizens  of  America  nothing 
but  the  same  courtesy,  the  same  polite  hospitality  and  atten- 
tion which  he  boasts  he  has  received  from  the  Irish  people 
in  their  native  land.  We  Irishmen  in  America  know  well 
that  it  is  not  by  discourtesy,  or  anything  approaching  to  rude- 
ness or  violence,  that  we  expect  to  make  our  appeal  to  this 
great  nation.  If  ever  the  reign  of  intellect  and  of  mind  was 
practically  established  in  this  world,  it  is  in  glorious  America. 
Every  man  who  seeks  the  truth,  every  man  who  preaches 
the  truth,  whether  it  be  a  religious  or  a  historical  truth,  will 
find  an  audience  in  America ;  and  1  hope  that  he  never  will 
find  an  Irishman  to  stand  up  arid  offer  him  discourtesy  or  vio- 
lence because  he  speaks  what  he  imagines  to  re  the  truth. 


Firm    LKtTlKE.  81 

So  much  being  said  in  reference  to  the  paragraph  to 
I  have  alluded,  I  rum.'  to  the  last  of  Mr.  Froude'a  . 
tc  the  last  of  my  own.     First,  the  loarned  gentleman,  . 
fourth  lecture,  told  the  people  of  America  hia  vi 
rebellion  of  llsl  and  the  subsequent   Irish  rebellion 
Acceding  to  Mr.  Froude,  the  Irish  made  a  great  i  te  in 

1782  iy  asserting  the  independence  of  the  Irish  Parliament, 
"The}  abandoned,"  says  this  learned  gentleman,  M  the 
of  political  reform,  and  they  clamored  lor  political  i 
Now,  political  agitation  is  one  thing  and  political  reform  Is 
another.     Political  reform,  my  friends,  means  the  correction 
of  great  abuses,  the  repealing  of  bad  laws,  and  the 
good  measures  for  the  welfare  and   well-tx 
According  to  this  learned  gentleman,  the  English  were  taught 
by  their  bitter  American  experience  that  coercion  would  Dot 
answer  with  the  people,  and   that   it  was  impossible  to  thrust 
unjust   laws   upon  a   people  or  nation.      According  to   Mr. 
Froude,  England  was  only  too  willing,  too  happy,  in  the  y<  ar 
1780  to  repeal  all  the  bad  laws  that  had  been  passed  in  the 
blindness  and  bigotry  of  bygone  ages,  and  to  grant   to  Ireland 
real  redress  of  all  her  grievances.      "But  the  Irish  people/ 
says   Mr.   Froude, "  instead  of  demanding  I  :.>1  ft 

redress  for  their  grievances,  insisted   upon  their  t  at 
Parliamentary  independence.    And  they  were  fools  in  this,''  ho 
says;  "for  that  very  independence  led  to  internal  contention 
from  contention  to  conspiracy,  from  oonsph  Uion, 

and    from    rebellion   to    tyranny."      Now,   I  .•    an 

enemy  of  political  agitation  as  Mr.  Froude  or  any  other  man. 
1  hold,  and  I  hold  it  by  experience,  that  politl  lis. 

tracts  men's  minds  from  more  serious  and  more  necessary 
avocations  of  life;  that  political  agitation  distracts  : 
minds  away  from  their  business,  ami  from  the  safer  pursuits 
of  industry,  while  it  creates  animosity  ami  bad  blood  betwi  •  n 
citizens;  that  it  affords  an  easy  and  profitable  employment  to 
worthless  demagogues,  and  that  it  brings  very  often  to  the 
face  the  vilest  and  meanest  element  [rant, 

But  at  the  same  time  I  hold  that  political  agitation  ;*<  the  • 
resource  left  to  a  people  who  are  endeavoring  to  • 
iaws  from  an  unwilling  and  tryannical 
ask  the  learned  historian  what  were  the  wars  (  fthc 
century  in  France,  in  Germany,  and  in  the  Nethei 
wars  Mr.  Froude  admire-  so  much,  and  for  w  hich  he  express,  i 

60  much  sympathy  .'       What   were  (hey  l,ut  political  ..        .... 

taking  the  form  of  armed  rebellion,  in  order 

the  government  of  the   time  what  the  |  red  to  be 


82  FATHER   BURKE'S   ANSWERS    TO   FAOUDE. 

just  measures  of  toleration  and  liberties  of  conscience  ?  With 
these  wars  that  were  waged  by  the  people  in  armed  rebellion 
against  France,  Spain,  and  in  the  Netherlands,  against  the 
Emperor  Charles  the  Fifth,  Mr.  Froude  has  the  deepest 
sympathy,  because  they  xoere  wars  made  by  Protestants  against 
Catholic  Governments.  The  men  who  made  these  wars  were 
innovaters,  and  they  were  revolutionists  in  every  sense  of  the 
word.  They  wanted  to  overthrow  and  overturn  not  only  the 
altar,  but  the  established  form  of  government.  But  when  the 
Irish,  who  alone  stood  in  defence  of  their  ancient  religion,  their 
altars,  their  lives,  their  property — not  their  freedom,  because 
that  was  long  gone — though  the  Irish  did  this,  the  learned 
gentleman  has  not  a  word  to  say,  except  those  which  express 
the  greatest  disdain  and  disapprobation.  And  now,  my 
friends,  we  come  to  consider  wnether  Mr.  Froude  is  right 
when  he  says  "that  the  Irish  only  clamored  for  political 
agitation." 

Now  mark  !  In  1780  the  Irish  people,  and  more  espe- 
cially the  Protestant  portion  of  the  Irish  people,  demanded  of 
the  English  Government  the  repeal  of  certain  laws  that  re- 
stricted and  almost  annihilated  the  trade  and  commerce  of 
Ireland.  These  laws  had  been  passed  under  William  III.; 
they  were  levelled  at  the  Irish  woollen  trade ;  they  forbid  the 
exportation  of  manufactured  cloth  from  Ireland,  except  under 
a  duty  that  was  equivalent  to  a  prohibition  tariff.  They  went 
so  far  as  to  prohibit  the  Irish  people  from  selling  the  very 
fleece — their  wool — selling  it  to  any  foreign  power  except 
England.  England  then  fixed  her  price,  and  as  Mr.  Froude 
himself  said,  "  although  the  French  might  be  offering  for  Irish 
wool,  the  Irish  merchant  could  not  sell  to  them,  but  he  was 
obliged  to  sell  to  the  English  merchant  at  his  own  price." 
When  the  Irish  people  demanded  this  just  measure,  I  ask  was 
England  willing  to  grant  it?  Was  England,  as  Air.  Froude 
says,  only  anxious  to  discover  unjust  laws  in  order  to  repeal 
thorn,  and  to  discover  grievances  in  order  to  redress  them  1  I 
answer,  No !  England  nailed  her  colors  to  the  mast.  She 
siM  :  "  I  never  will  grant  a  repeal  of  restriction  duties  on  Irish 
trade.     Ireland  is  down,  and  1  will  keep  her  down." 

The  proof  lies  here,  that  the  English  Government  resisted 
Grattan's  demand  for  the  emancipation  of  Irish  industry  until 
Henry  Grattan  brought  50,000  volunteers,  and  the  very  day 
he  Hoe  in  the  Irish  Parliament  to  proclaim  that  she  demanded 
her  rights  and  no  more  the  volunteers  in  College  Green  and 
Stephen's  Green,  in  Dublin,  planted  their  cannon  right  before 
the  English  House  of  Commons,  and  had  written  over  the 


Fir j  n    LSI  i  i  1:1:. 

month--  (>t  tneir  for  Ireland,  or 

If  England  w  as  s 

the  IrisL  people  bad  only  to  say  :  ••  Look  b< 

law  iu  existence,  take  it  away,  for  it  la  strangling  and 

ing  the  industry  of  the  country"— if  I 

take  away  the  thing — and  this  Mr,  Froude  • 

she  was  willing  to  hear  a  defect  only  to  remedy  it,  wh 

the  name  of  God,— why,  in  that  day  of  1780-     :. 

hold  out  until  at  the  cannon's  mouth  she  was  compel 

yield  the  commercial  independence   of  Ireland  .'     I-    ,! 

wonder  that  the  Irish  people  thought,  with   Henr    G 

that  if  every  measure  of  reform   was  to  be  fought   f->r.  the 

country  would  be  kept  in  a  perfect  Btate  of  revolution  1     If 

the  Irish  people  would  have  to  say  :  "  Whatev<  r  w< 

we   must  be  ready   with  our  torches    lighted   and 

loaded,"  is  it  any  wonder  that  the)  should  have  said  :  ••  It  la 

far  better  for  us  to  leave  our  Parliament  free  and  independent 

to   take   up  the  making  of  our  own  laws,  and,  consultii  _ 

interests,  and  in  peace,  quietness,  and  harmony, to  ta 

for  the  needs  of  Ireland  and  legislate  for  them.     And  ' 

what  Mr.  Froude  calls  clamoring  for  political  agitation. 

we  see,  my  friends — and  remember  tins  evening,  fellow-* 

trymen,  that  1  am  moved  to  especially  appeal  to  A 

I  expect  my  verdict  this  evening  as  Mr.  Fn 

it  is  not  from   Dr.  Hitchcock.      It    is  not   the  punj 

barn-door  fowl,  but  it  is  the  scream  of  the   American 

that  I  expect  to  hear.    Thus  we  see  that  the  action  of  178S 

which  Grattan  obtained  and  achieved  the  independ< 

Irish  Parliament,  did  not  show  any  innate  love  oflrishmt 

political  agitation ;  but   in  the  action  of  the  British  Govern. 

rnent,  that" forced  them  on,  they  gave  them  only  two  alb 

tives:    remain  subject  to  my  Parliament  and  I    wilL  i 

grant  you  anything  except  at   the  cannon's  moul 

your  own  liberty  and   legislate  for  yourselves.     Oh,   II 

Grattan,  you  were  not  a  Catholic,  and'  yet  I.  a  Catfa 

here  to-night  call  down  ten  thousand  Me-siuL's  <u   your   • 

It  is  true  that  that  emancipated  Parlia 

realize  the  hopes  ot'  the  Irish  nation.     P 

Parliament  of  17*0  was  a  failure,  I  grant  it.     Mr.    I 

says  that  1  hat  Parliament  was  a  failure  because  th 

incapable  of  self  legislation.     It  is  a  serious 

now  against  any  people,  my    friends.      I.  who  am  QOt  Ml]  | 

to  be  a  philosopher,  and  I.. 

Fiipposed  not  to  be  •  man  of  very  lar_'e  mind— J  Stand  up  here 
to-night  «d  J  assert  my  conviction  thai  thwfl  •  I  OTJ 


84  VATHER    BURKE'S   ANSWERS   TO   FROUDE. 

race  under  the  sun  that  is  not  capable  of  self-legislation,  and 
that  has  not  a  right  to  the  inheritance  of  freedom.  But  if  the 
learned  gentleman  wishes  to  know  what  was  the  real  cause  of 
that  failure,  I  will  tell  him.  The  emancipated  Parliament  of 
1782,  although  it  enclosed  within  its  walls  such  honored  names 
as  Grattan  and  Flood,  yet  did  not  represent  the  Irish  nation. 
There  were  nearly  three  millions  and  a  half  of  Irishmen  in 
Ireland  at  that  day.  Three  millions  were  Catholics  and  half 
a  million  Protestants,  and  the  Parliament  of  1782  only  repre- 
sented the  half-million.  Nay,  more  ;  examine  the  constitution 
of  that  Parliament  and  see  who  they  were,  see  how  they  were 
elected,  and  you  will  find  that  not  even  the  half-million  of 
Protestants  were  fairly  represented  in  that  Parliament. 

For  the  House  of  Commons  held  three  hundred  members, 
and  of  these  three  hundred  there  were  only  seventy-two 
elected  by  the  people;  the  rest  were  nominees  of  certain  great 
lords  and  certain  large  landed  proprietors.  A  man  happened 
to  have  an  estate  the  size  of  a  county,  and  each  town  sent  a 
man  to  Parliament.  The  landlord  said,  You  elect  such  and 
such  a  man,  naming  him.  These  places  were  called  rotten 
boroughs,  nomination  boroughs,  pocket  boroughs,  because  my 
lord  had  them  in  his  pocket.  Have  any  of  you  Irishmen 
here  present  ever  travelled  from  Dublin  to  Drogheda? 
There  is  a  miserable  village,  a  half  a  dozen  wretched  huts, 
the  dirtiest,  filthiest  place  I  ever  saw — and  that  miserable 
village  returned  a  member  for  the  Irish  Parliament.  Did 
that  Parliament  of  1782  represent  the  Irish  people  ?  The 
3,000,000  of  Catholics  had  not  so  much  as  a  vote.  The  best, 
the  most  intellectual,  Catholic  in  Ireland  had  not  even  a  vote 
for  member  of  Parliament.  Had  the  Parliament  repre- 
sented the  Irish  nation,  they  would  have  solved  the  problem 
of  Home  Rule  in  a  sense  favorable  to  Ireland  and  very  unfav- 
orable to  the  theories  of  Mr.  Froude. 

The  Irish  people  knew  this  well,  and  the  moment  that  the 
Parliament  of  1782  was  declared  independent  of  the  Parlia- 
ment of  England,  was  declared  to  have  the  power  of  originat- 
ing its  own  arts  of  legislation,  and  to  be  responsible  to  no  one 
but  the  king,  that  moment  the  Irish  clamored  for  reform. 
They  said  :  "  Reform  yourselves."  Let  the  people  represent 
them  fairly,  and  you  will  make  a  great  success  of  our  inde- 
pendence. The  volunteers,  to  their  honor,  cried  out  for  re- 
form. In  their  first  meeting  at  Dungarvan,  where  they  were 
95,000  strong,  the  only  thing  they  demanded  was  reform. 
The  United  Irishmen — who,  in  the  beginning,  were  not  a 
secret  society  or  a  treasonable  society,  but  open,  free,  loyal 


v\n  ii    LXCI1  in:.  *-6 

men,  embracing   the   first  names  and  the  first  cha 
Ireland — the    I  uiir.l    [rishmen  originated    as  em- 

bracing the  first  intellect  in  Ireland  for  the  purp< 
ing  reform  on  the  Parliament.     It  may   be  inten 
citizens  of  America  who  have  honored  me  with  their  pn 
this  evening,  it  may  be  interesting  to  my  Irish  fi  ii 
men,  to   know  u  liat   were  the   three  precepts  on  which  the 
United  Irishmen  were  founded.     Here   thej  first 

resolution  of  that  society  was  that  "the  weight  of  Ii: 
influence  in  the  government  of  this  country    - 

require  cordial  union  a ig  all  tin-  people  of  Ireland  to  i 

tain  that  balance  which  is  essential  t<>  the  preservation  of  our 
liberties  ami  t<>  the  extension  of  our  commerce." 

Resolution  No.  2:  "  That  the  only  constitutional  mean 
which  this  influence  of  England  can  be  oppose  d  i-  b)  con  ; 

cordial,  and  radical  refor f  the  representation  of  the  | 

in  Parliament."  Resolution  No.  •*> :  "That  no  reform  is  ju>t 
which  does  not  include  every  Irishman  of  ever)  relia 
persuasion."  There  you  have  the  whole  programme  oi  the 
formidable  Society  of  United  [rishmen.  I  ask  the  people  of 
America  it'  there  is  anything  treasonable,  anything  reprehensi- 
ble, anything  deserving  imprisonment,  punishment,  or  death, 
in  such  resolution  I  But  England  opposed  and  hindered  the 
feform.  England  said  the  Parliament  must  remain  ■ 
sentatives  of  a  faction  and  not  of  the  nation — the  corrupt  and 
venal  representatives  of  only  a  small  portion  of  the  P 

faction.     On  the  29th  of  November,  L793,  I'l 1  introduced 

into  the  Irish   Parliament  a  Kill   of  reform.     The  moment  it 
was  read  a  member  rose  to  oppose    it.     That  member 
Barry  Yelverton,  afterward    Lord  Avonmore,  'he   Attorney. 
General  of  Inland,  who  gave  to  the  hill  an  official  and  Go 
menl  opposition.     The  bill  was  defeated  by  I69to77.      I 
one  of  the  159  voted  with  the  bribe  in  their  pockets.     Then 
Attorney-General  Yelverton  rose   and   made   ;i  motion   that   it 
be   declared    that    this    Bouse    maintain    its   just     right* 
privileges  against  all  encroachments  whatsoever,  the  just  rj 
and  privileges  being  the  representation  of  I 
Irish  people.     But,  Bays    Mr.   Froude,  from    confusion   j 
conspiracy,  and  from  conspiracy  grew  rebellion.    Bj  cons] 
he   mean-  the  Society  of  United  Irishmen  and  by  rebellion 
the  rising  of  '98.     In  my  last  lecture  I  showed  by  th 
of  such  illustrious  men  as  Sir  Ralph   Abercrombie  ai 
John  Moore,  the  hero  of  Corunna,  thai   the  rising 
caused    b)    the   British  Government,  which  goaded   th    Irish 
into  rebellion.     I  think  I  have  to-night  shown  thai   the  S 


86  FATIIEK    BL'RKb's    ANSWERS   TO   FROUDE. 

of  United  Irishmen  was  not  a  conspiracy,  but  a  union  of  the 
best  intellects  and  best  men  in  Ireland  for  a  splendid  and 
patriotic  purpose,  which  they  aimed  to  attain  by  loyal  and 
legitimate  means.  But  the  United  Irishmen  were  formed  to 
effect  a  union  among  all  Irishmen,  and  this  was  enough  to 
excite  the  suspicions  of  England,  whose  policy  for  centuries 
has  been  to  maintain  divisions  in  Ireland.  Well  did  Mr. 
Froude  say  that  on  the  day  when  Irishmen  were  united  .they 
will  be  invincible.  The  Prime  Minister  of  England,  William 
Pitt,  resolved  on  three  things :  First,  to  disarm  the 
volunteers  ;  second,  to  drive  the  United  Irishmen  into  con- 
spiracy ;  and  third,  to  force  Ireland  into  a  rebellion  and  have 
it  at  his  feet.  1  am  reviewing  this  historically,  calmly,  and 
without  expression  of  feeling.  But  I  think  a  philosopher  is 
the  last  man  in  the  world  who  ought  to  write  history.  Mr. 
Froude  ought  not  to  write  history.  A  historian's  duty  is  to 
detail  dry  facts,  and  the  less  he  has  to  do  with  theories  the 
better.  I  believe  the  learned  gentleman  is  too  much  of  a 
philosopher  to  be  a  good  historian,  and  too  much  of  a  historian 
to  be  a  good  philosopher.  The  first  of  Pitt's  three  designs 
was  accomplished  in  1785.  His  next  move  was  to  send  to 
Ireland  a  standing  army  of  15,000  men,  and  to  obtain  from 
the  Irish  Parliament  a  grant  of  £20,000  to  enable  him  to 
organize  a  regular  militia.  Between  the  army  and  the  militia 
he  caught  the  volunteers  in  the  centre  and  disarmed  them. 
On  the  day  when  the  last  volunteer  laid  down  his  arms  the 
hopes  of  Ireland  were  for  the  time  laid  clown  with  him.  In 
1793  the  Parliament  passed  two  bills,  the  Gunpowder  Bill  and 
the  Committee  Bill.  A  public  meeting  of  United  Irishmen 
was  held  in  Dublin  to  protest  against  the  outrageous  course 
pursued  by  certain  agents  of  the  Government  in  entering 
houses,  and  penetrating  into  private  chambers,  under  pretence 
of  searching  for  gunpowder,  alleged  to  be  concealed  there. 
The  Hon.  Simon  Butler,  president,  and  Oliver  Bond,  secretary, 
of  the  meeting,  were  imprisoned  five  months  and  fined  £300 
for  their  part  in  the  demonstration.  The  United  Irishmen 
were  obliged  to  seek  refuge  from  persecution  in  secrecy,  and 
were,  thus  forced  to  become  conspirators. 

But  the  first  really  treasonable  project  in  which  they  took 
part  was  in  1794,  when  the  Rev.  William  Jackson,  a  Pro- 
testant clergyman,  came  over  to  Ireland,  commissioned  by 
the  French  Convention.  M r.  Jackson  was  a  true  man.  but  he 
was  accompanied  by  a  certain  John  Cocquaine,  an  English 
lawyer  of  London,  and  the  agent  of  Pitt,  Prime.  Minister  of 
England.     Thus  did  the  (Society  of  United  Irishmen  become 


FIFTH    I.EtTURK.  g? 

the  seat  of  conspiracy,  and  this  was  th 

Government.     Before  that   it  was  perfectly 

constitutional.     Ah!  but  it  bad  an  objecl  wb 

formidable  to  the   English  Government   tl  a 

treason.     The    Euglish   Government    ia 

treason,  but  the  English  Government  tren 

the  id  a  of  Irish  union.     The   United    I 

to  promote  union  among  Irishmen  of   • 

Englishman  has  .said  in  his  own  mind,  ••  Tr< 

union;"  it  will  force  them    to  become 

tors  in  their  projects,  and  union  w  ill  be  Lioktn  i  ]•.     Il 

that  you  should  bear,  my  American  fri< 

that  was  demanded  of  the  United   Iris]  i  Let  us  ttpp ote 

1  was  going  to   be  sworn  in:  "  I,  Thomi      Duike,  in  lh< 

sence  of  God,  do  pledge  myself  to  mj  c«»ni  j  thai  I    • 

all  my  abilities  and  influence  in  the  ar.taii  mn.i     I 

and  adequate  representation  of  the  lii-h  i  I 

and  as  a  most  absolute  and  immediate  n itj  forth* 

ment  of  this  chief  good  of  Ireland,  1  will  endi 
lies  in  my  ability  to  forward  and   perj 

interests,  the  union  of  rights,  and  the   union  of  j owei 

Irishman  of  all  religious  persuasions."     1  prol 

Heaven  to-night  that,  priesl  as  I  am,  it'  1  \\<  i<-  ask< 

take  that  oath.  1  would   have  taken    il   and   I 

Remember,  my  friends,  that  it  was  no  -  tn.ttr 

that  it  was  an  oath    that  no  man  could  ••  fu£<   to  tnki 

was  a  dishonorable    man  and  a   traitoi 

founder  of  this  society  was   Theobald   W<   fe  'I    :■.     I 

that  Mr.  Tone  was  imbued  witli   French  r< ••> 

but  he  certainly   never  endeavored    t< 

upon  the  society  until  Mr.  William    Pitt's,  the! 

ter,  influence  forced  that  society  to  be©  me  a 

Hon.     The  third  object  of  the    Premier  ol   the  Goveini 

namely,  to  create  an  Irish  rebellion — was  a<  i  omj  . 

cruelties  and  abominations  of  the  soldiers,  who  w<  r< 

upon  the  | pie  and   d.  stroyi  d   them.      They    \ 

sanctity  of  Irish  maidenh I    Bi  d  womanh I.  1 

villages,  plundered  their  farms,  demolished    '!>• 
they  made  life  even  mow  intolerable  tl  and 

compelled  th.-  people  to  rise  in  the  n  b«  '    -      x 

you  may  ask  what  advantage  was  this  t"  W  I 

JPrcmier,  to  have  conspiracy   and    reh  llion  '      ' 

answer  vou  that  William  Pitt  was 
and  that  meant  in  those  days  a  gn  H 
sow  Ireland  with  her  Parliament,  !:• 


83  F.ir  i  ;.:   i;j.:.c^  •>  ANs.Viiis  to  fuoudk. 

her  own  laws,  consulting  her  own  interests,  and  he  said  to 
himself:  "Ah!  this  will  never  do.  This  country  will  grow 
happy  and  prosperous  ;  this  country  will  be  powerful,  and  that 
won't  subserve  my  purposes,  my  imperial  designs.  What  do 
I  care  for  Ireland  ?  1  care  for  the  British  Empire."  And  he 
made  up  his  mind  to  destroy  the  Irish  Parliament  and  to  carry 
the  Act  of  Union.  He  knew  well  as  long  as  Ireland  was  happy, 
peaceful,  and  prosperous  he  never  could  effect  that.  He  knew 
well  that  it  was  only  through  the  humiliation  and  destruction 
of  Ireland  that  he  could  do  it;  and,  cruel  man  as  he  was,  he 
resolved  to  plunge  the  kingdom  into  rebellion  and  bloodshed 
in  order  to  carry  out  his  infernal  English  state  policy.  And 
yet,  dear  friends,  especially  my  American  friends,  my  grand 
jury — for  I  feel  as  if  I  were  a  lawyer  pleading  the  case  of  a 
poor  defendant,  that  has  been  defendant  in  many  a  court  for 
many  a  long  century  ;  the  plaintiff  is  a  great,  rich,  powerful 
woman  ;  the  poor  defendant  has  nothing  to  commend  her  but 
a  heart  that  has  never  yet  despaired,  a  spirit  that  never  yet 
was  broken,  and  a  loyalty  to  God  and  to  man  that  never  yet 
was  violated  by  any  act  of  treason — I  ask  you,  0  grand  jury 
of  America  !  to  consider  how  easy  it  was  to  conciliate  this 
poor  mother  Ireland  of  mine,  and  to  make  her  peaceful  and 
happy.  Pitt  himself  had  a  proof  of  it  in  that  very  year  of 
1794. 

Suddenly  the  imperious  and  magnificent  Premier  seemed  to 
have  changed  his  mind  and  to  have  adopted  a  policy  of  con- 
ciliation. He  recalled  the  Irish  Lord  Lieutenant  Westmore- 
land, and  he  sent  to  Ireland  Earl  Fitzwilliam,  who  arrived  on 
the  4th  of  January,  1795.  Lord  Fitzwilliam  was  a  gentleman 
of  liberal  mind,  and  a  most  estimable  character.  He  felt 
kindly  to  the  Irish  people,  and  before  he  left  England  he 
made  an  express  compact  with  William  Pitt  that  if  he  were 
made  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland  he  would  govern  the  country 
with  principles  of  conciliation  and  kindness.  He  came.  He 
found  in  Dublin  Castle  a  certain  Secretary  Cooke,  a  petty 
tyrant,  and  he  found  the  great  family  of  Beresfords,  who  for 
years  and  years  had  monopolized  all  the  public  offices  and 
emoluments,  and  held  uncontrolled  sway  over  the  destinies 
of  Ireland.  He  dismissed  them  all,  sent  them  all  to  the  right 
about,  and  he  surrounded  himself  with  men  of  liberal  minds 
and  large,  statesman-like  views.  He  began  by  telling  the  Ca- 
tholics of  Ireland  that  he  would  labor  for  their  emancipation. 
A  sudden  peace  and  joy  spread  throughout  the  nation.  Every 
vestige  of  insubordination  and  rebellion  seemed  to  vanish  out 
of  the  Irish  mind  ;    the  people  were  content    to  wait ;  every 


KIKJII    I.i;.i  i  KE. 

law  was  observed  :  pea  • .  ha]  ; 

being  the  portion  or  Irish  p  oj 

an  evil  hour  Pitt  returni 

liam  was  recalled  on  the  25th       '  I 

her  hopes  only   for  two 

tained  that   Lord  Fitzwilliain  «  i    i 

was  scarcely  a  parish  in  I 

resolutions,  and  prayers  to  ti. 

them  their  Lord  Lieut*  d  i 

was  ohanged  ;  1'itt  had  i 

On  the  day  that  Lord   ITitcw  J 

citizens  uf  I  Dublin  t-.nk  the  hoi     i  t 

drew  the  carriage  tfa 

Ireland  was  in  t.  art,     •■  Th<    - 

time,  ••  was  heartrending  ;  tlio  whok 

ing."     How  easy  it  was, 

these  people   whom 

have   changed.     » Mi !    it"  onl)    I 

En^li>li  Parliament,  the 

realize  this  for  ever 

glorious  heart,  the  bj 

but  t<>  which  thej    b 

They  have  turned   the   \<-r_v  bonej    ol 

gall  and  bitto 

away  all  the  old  privileg 

f  .v  . 

Irish  I '  urliament,  which 
America 

get  a  verdict  from  you  will  bt 
rii_rli'  of  buman  1-  . 

nth.    Then,  in  •:. 
going  back  1  1 

not  blame   Euglaud   for  I 
took  av  i  •  I ' 

yoke  than  you   !"■!' 

own  fault ;  w  hat 

1 1  .  the  penal 

N 
tion  of  IdOO 

. 
revoluti 


SO  FATHh.U    BUKK.tt'8    AKctWKBS   TO    FROUDK. 

laws  began  to  operate  in  Ireland  in  1534.  In  1537  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Armagh  and  Primate  of  Ireland,  who  was  an  Eng- 
lishman, was  put  into  jail,  and  left  there  for  denying  the 
supremacy  of  Harry  Vlll.  over  the  Church  of  Rome.  Pass- 
ing over  the  succeeding  years  of  Harry  Vlil.,  passing  over  the 
enactments  of  Somerset,  we  come  to  Elizabeth's  reign.  And 
we  find  that  she  assembled  a  Parliament  in  15o0,  forty  years 
before  Mr.  Eroude's  revolution.  Here  is  one  of  the  laws  of 
the  Parliament  :  "  All  officers  and  ministers  ecclesiastical  " 
(that  took  us  in)  "  were  bound  to  take  the  oath  of  supremacy, 
and  bound  to  swear  that  Queen  Elizabeth  was  Popess  ;  that 
she  was  the  head  of  the  Church ;  that  she  was  the  successor  of 
the  Apostles  ;  that  she  was  the  representative  of  St.  Peter, 
and  through  him  of  the  Eternal  Son  of  God."  Queen  Eliza- 
beth !  My  friends,  all  were  obliged  to  take  this  oath  under 
pain  of  forfeiture  and  total  incapacity.  Any  one  who  main- 
tained the  spiritual  supremacy  of  the  Pope  was  to  forfeit  for 
the  first  offence  all  his  estates,  real  and  personal ;  and  if  he 
had  no  estate,  and  if  he  was  not  worth  twenty  pounds,  he  was 
to  be  put  for  one  year  in  jail.  For  the  second  offence  he  was 
liable  to  the  penalty  of  premunire,  and  for  the  third  offence 
guilty  of  high  treason  and  put  to  death.  These  laws  were 
made,  and  commissioners  appointed  to  enforce  them.  Mr. 
Eroude  says  they  were  not  enforced.  But  we  actually  have 
the  acts  of  Elizabeth's  Parliament,  appointing  magistrates  and 
officers  to  go  out  and  enforce  these  laws.  And  these  were 
made  forty  years  before  the  revolution  which  Mr.  Froude 
alludes  .to  as  the  revolution  of  1600.  How,  then,  can  the  gen- 
tleman ask  us  to  regard  the  penal  laws  as  the  effects  of  the 
revolution  ?  In  my  philosophy,  and  1  believe  in  that  of  the 
citizens  of  America,  the  effect  generally  follows  the  cause. 
But  the  English  philosophical  historian  puts  the  effects  forty 
years  ahead  of  the  cause,  or,  as  we  say  in  Ireland,  he  put  "  the 
car  before  the  horse."  But,  my  friends,  Mr.  Eroude  tells  us, 
if  you  remember,  in  his  second  lecture  that  the  penal  laws  of 
Elizabeth  were  occasioned  by  the  political  necessity  of  her 
situation.  Here  is  his  argument,  as  he  gives  it.  He  says  : 
"Elizabeth  could  not  afford  to  let  Ireland  be  Catholic, because 
if  Ireland  were  Catholic,  Ireland  must  be  hostile  to  Elizabeth." 
I  may  tell  you  now,  and  I  hope  the  ladies  here  will  pardon  me 
for  mentioning  it,  that  Queen  Elizabeth  was  not  a  legitimate 
child.  Her  name  in  common  parlance  is  too  vile  for  me  to 
utter  or  for  the  ladies  here  to  hear.  Suffice  it  to  say  that 
Elizabeth's  mother  was  not  Elizabeth's  father's  wife.  The 
Queen  of  England  knew  the  ancient  abhorrence  that  Ireland 


Fin  ii    l  l.  i  VMM.  91 

ha  1  i  >r  Buob  a  vice,     BIm  knew 

1  .     • 

t-<  remain  Catholic,  because  Ireland  would  tx 

Ireland  remained  Catholic,     The  onl)   ••  i 

i  root  tMiL  Catholics  in  Ireland  was  i>_v  pens 
ing  it  a  felony  for  any  Irishmau  i"  reiuaiu  iu  I 
lie.      Therefore  the    English  historian 
these  lawa  because  she  coul  I  not  help  herself,  and  tl 

id  by  the  necessity  of  ber  situati 
if  Elizabetli,  as  he  states  in  b 
p  tea  these  p  mal  laws  whether  sh 

say  that  those  penal  laws  vrere  the  effects    I    Hugh  O'N 
revolution  .'     If  they  were  the  r.-«.n!t  .  : 
thru  they  were  not  the  result  ->t  the  immoii  i 
Sorts. 
His  next  assertion  is  that  after  the  American 
was  only  t<»>  well  .li>p.».-l  to  <!•>  just: 
proof  lies  here  :     He  says  that  M  the  laws  against  tl 
were  almost  all  repealed   before    1798."     veri    well;  now    I 
ask  you,  dear  friends,  to  reflect   upon  whs 
sures  of  iudulgei  oe  to  the  Cs 

speak-.     Here  In    the    year    1 7"  I     I' 

pass  to  '-iKilih'  <  latholioa  I 

»f  b  •_'.     M\   American  friei 
this  word,  bog.     We  in  Ireland  'I".     It  means  a  i 
almost  irreclaimablo ;  it  means  ■  marsh  wh 
draining    until    doomsday,  still   it   will   rema 
marsh.     You  may  sink  a  fortune  in  it  in  arterial  ■  i i 
top  dressing,  as  we  oall  it  in  Ireland.     Let  il  alone  I 
of  years,  then  oome  back  and  1" 

and  it  i-.  a  1">U'  once  more.     Hom 

tiuder  than  vmi  imagine.     For  while  tb< 
Catholic  the  power  to  uk.-  i  long  lease  of  I  I 
they  also  stipulated  that  it'  the  bog 
tion,  he  might  tak 
Half  an  :i 

- 
town.     <  >h  !  no;  and  mark  thl  • :  If  hall  I 
claimed,  that  is  ii\«-  and  twenl 

the  lea  3  II  us 

th  il  K^ii_'   Pharaoh  ■  •  F1 

.  ■  he  or  I- ■•"'  i  '  h  m  t'>  make 

is  a   law  that   ordered  unfort 
• 
land. 


92        FATHER  BURKE'S  ANSWERS  TO  FROUDE. 

ed  to  hear  that  the  very  Parliament  that  passed  it  was  so 
much  afraid  of  the  Protestant  ascendancy  in  Ireland  that,  in 
order  to  conciliate  them  for  this  slight  concession,  they  passed 
another  bill  granting  £10  additional  to  £30  already  offered  for 
every  Papist  priest  duly  converted  to  the  Protestant  religion. 
In  October  1777  the  news  reached  England  that  General 
Burgoyne  had  surrendered  to  General  Gates.  The  moment 
that  the  news  reached  Lord  North,  who  was  Prime  Minister 
of  England,  he  immediately  expressed  an  ardent  desire  to 
relax  the  penal  laws  on  Catholics.  In  January,  the  following 
year,  1778,  the  independence  of  America  was  acknowledged 
by  glorious  France.  And  the  moment  that  piece  of  news 
reached  England  the  English  Parliament  passed  a  bill  for  the 
relaxation  of  the  laws  on  Catholics.  In  May  of  the  same  year 
the  Irish  Parliament  passed  a  bill — now  mark  ! — to  enable 
Catholics  to  lease  land — to  take  a  lease  for  nine  hundred  and 
ninety-nine  years.  So  it  seems  we  were  to  get  out  of  the 
bog  at  last. 

They  also  in  that  year  repealed  the  unnatural  penal  law 
which  altered  the  succession  in  favor  of  the  child  who  became 
a  Protestant  and  gave  him  the  father's  property.  They  also 
repealed  the  law  for  the  persecution  of  priests  and  the  impri- 
sonment of  Popish  schoolmasters.  In  the  year  1793  thev  gave 
back  to  the  Catholics  the  power  to  elect  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment, to  vote,  and  they  also  gave  them  the  right  to  certain 
commissions  in  the  army.  That  is,  positively,  all  that  we  got. 
And  this  is  what  Mr.  Froude  calls  "  almost  a  total  repeal  of 
the  laws  against  Catholics."  We  could  not  go  into  Parlia- 
ment; we  could  not  go  on  the  bench ;  we  could  not  be  magis- 
trates ;  we  were  still  the  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of 
water.  And  this  loyal  and  benign  Englishman  conies  and  says  : 
"  Why,  you  fools,  you  were  almost  free  !"  Well,  people  of 
America,  if  these  be  Mr.  Froude's  notions  of  civil  and  reli- 
gious freedom,  I  appeal  to  you  for  Ireland  not  to  give  him 
the  verdict.  "The  insurrection  of  '98,"  continues  the  learned 
gentleman,  "  threw  Ireland  back  into  confusion  and  misery, 
from  which  she  was  partially  delivered  by  the  Act  of  Union." 
The  first  part  of  that  proposition  I  admit ;  the  second  I  em- 
phatically deny.  I  admit  that  the  unsuccessful  rebellion  of 
'98  threw  Ireland  back  into  a  state  of  misery.  Unsuccessful 
rebellion  is  one  of  the  greatest  calamities  that  can  befall  a 
nation,  and  the  sooner  Irishmen  and  Irish  patriots  understand 
this  the  better  it  will  be  for  them  and  their  country.  I  em- 
phatically deny  that  by  the  Act  of  Union  there  was  any  remedy 
for  these  miseries ;  that  it  had  any  healing  remedy  whatever 


r  iPTii 


- 


Ireland  lost  her  I 
from  thai  d 

died  if  the  u 
i  not  dwell   up 
\>\    which    the    inferna     • 
carried  that  detestable  !  Mr. 

to  pas*  I.n  thai  di 
and  I  can  d  I! 

whatever  grievan 

gislation  after  th< 

I.  •  n  Catholics 
promised  in  writing  bj    I       14      nwallia  thai  I 
pation  would  be  given  them  if  the)  -  • 
I'       himself  ass  ired    th<  m  that  be  would  not 
1 1       rnment  unl< 
measure.     The  honor  of  P 

gaged;   the  honor  of  the  brave  though  unfortui    U   I 
wall  is  was   engag      ;  but   the   Irish   were   1-  fl 
bitterness  •  f  spii  it  upon  thi    nature  of  ] 
me  introduce  an  honored  name  tl.  tl    I 
l._\ .     At  thai  lime  the  Parliament  of  In  land 
money  an. I   titles,  and   the  <  atholic  |  • 
bribed  by  the  ]  i  i  the)  « i 

t..  tin-  Union.     Then  it   was  that   a  j  ■ 
T  > ;  1 1 . 1  i  1 1  and  spoke  for  the 
tlif  nam.-  of  the  '  !al  I 

is  Da      .  I  I  '    nnell.     Two  • 
a  kind  '•!'  I  ■ 
getting  ( latholic  ; 

h 
ing   to   pass   any    m«  asure   the    J  h   G 

require.     '  ^  '■■-••  II  •' 

•"  ..      I!  '  !: 

of  tli.'  Cath 
8ib  ;  |-  is  'i/.  -•  ■  tim<    • 
ment  nol  only  of  evcri    gentleman  thai 
Catholic    people  ..t'    Ireland,   thai 
injurious,  insultii  p 
upon    us  the  renewal  of  the    |- 
boldly  meet  the  persecutioi 
testimony  of  our 

themeroy  of  our  Pro!       i  I  brethn  n,  th 
the  political  murder  .■  ■     : 


94        FATHER  BURKE'S  ANSWERS  TO  FROUDE. 

exclusive  advantages  may  be  ambiguously  held  forth  to  the 
Irish  Catholic  to  seduce  him  from  the  sacred  duty  which  he 
owes  to  his  country,  1  know  that  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  still 
remember  that  they  have  a  country,  and  that  they  will  never 
accept  of  any  advantage  as  a  sect  which  would  debase  and 
destroy  them  as  a  people." 

Shade  of  the  great  departed,  you  never  uttered  truer  words  ! 
Shade  of  the  great  O'Connell,  every  true  Irishman,  priest  and 
layman,  subscribes  to  these  glorious  sentiments,  wherever 
that  Irishman  is  this  night ! 

Now,  Mr.  Froude  goes  on  in  an  innocent  sort  of  a  way  : 
"  It  is  a  strange  thing  after  the  Union  was  passed  that  the 
people  of  Ireland  were  still  grumbling  and  complaining. 
They  were  not  treated  unjustly  hard."  These  are  his  words. 
Good  God!  People  of  America,  what  idea  can  this  gentleman 
have  of  justice  1  What  loss  did  this  Union,  which  he  admired 
so  much — what  loss  did  it  inflict  on  Ireland1?  He  seems  to 
think  that  it  did  absolutely  nothing,  and  1  ask  you  to  consider 
two  or  three  of  the  losses.  First  of  all  you  remember,  my 
dear  friends,  that  Ireland  before  the  Union  had  her  own 
national  debt,  as  she  had  her  own  military.  She  was  a  na- 
tion. And  the  national  debt  of  Ireland  in  the  year  1793  did 
not  amount  to  three  millions  of  money.  In  the  year  1800, 
the  year  of  the  Union,  the  national  debt  of  Ireland  amounted 
to  twenty-eight  millions  of  money.  They  increased  it  nine- 
fold in  six  years.  How  1  I  will  tell  you.  England  had  in 
Ireland,  for  her  own  purpose,  at  the  time  of  the  Union  120,- 
500  soldiers. 

Pretty  tough  business  that  of  keeping  Ireland  down  in  those 
days  !  She  didn't  pay  a  penny  of  her  own  money  for  them. 
In  order  to  carry  the  Union,  England  spent  enormous  sums  of 
money  on  spies,  informers,  members  of  Parliament,  etc.  She 
took  every  penny  of  this  out  of  the  Irish  treasury.  There 
were  eighty-four  rotten  boroughs  disfranchised  at  the  time  of 
the  Union,  and  England  paid  to  those  who  owned  those 
boroughs — who  had  the  nomination  of  them — one  million  two 
hundred  thousand  pounds  sterling.  O'Connell,  speaking  on 
this  subject,  says  it  was  really  strange  that  Ireland  was  not 
asked  to  pay  for  the  knife  with  which,  twenty-two  years  later, 
Castlereagh  cut  his  throat.  If  the  debt  of  Ireland  was  swollen 
in  these  few  years  from  three  million  to  twenty-six  million,  1 
ask  you  to  consider  what  followed.  In  January,  1801,  the 
year  of  the  Union,  four  hundred  and  fifty  and  one-half  million 
was  the  debt  of  England,  and  to  pay  the  interest  on  that  it 
required  seventeen  million  seven  hundred  and  eight  thousand 


rirni   uonni  95 

I 

■ 
In  the  3 eai  1817, 
land  bad  i 

hundred  and  thirty  -five  millioi 
an  annua  twenty-  1 

... 
N 

William  Pit1  • 

\  '.   men,  but 

l>oi   iraa  tw< 

'  :. 

th  1801.     In  1811  ■■• 

debt,wl. 

twelve  mill 
and  four  thousand  | 

• 

but  the 

in  th-.-  year  th  \ 

'  ■ 
I.  I 

;  ' 
.  ind  lost  ti. 
. 

Ireland  was  aq  idebtal 

■ 

b 

• 
i 
th 

... 

! 

. 

four   hui 

; 
To  th'n  I  answer  ii.     I  hooest. 


96  FATHEB   BURKE  S   ASSWER8   TO   FROUDE. 

of  the  high-minded  John  Mitchel  ;  "It  is  true  that  the  laws 
regulating  trade  are  the  same  in  the  two  islands.  Ireland  may 
export  flax  and  woollen  clothing  to  England ;  she  may  import 
ner  own  tea  from  China  and  sugar  from  Barbadoes  ;  the  lawa 
which  make  these  penal  offences  no  longer  exist :  and  why  ] 
Because  they  are  no  longer  needed.  England,  by  the  opera- 
tion of  these  old  laws,  has  secured  Ireland's  ruin  in  this  respect. 
England  has  a  commercial  marine;  Ireland  has  it  to  create. 
England  has  manufacturing  skill,  which  in  Ireland  has  been 
destroyed.  To  create  or  recover  at  this  day  these  great 
industrial  and  commercial  resources,  and  that  in  the  face  of 
wealthy  rivals,  is  manifestly  impossible  without  one  or  the 
other  of  these  conditions — an  immense  command  of  capital,  or 
effective  duties  by  Government.  Capital  has  been  drained  to 
England  from  Ireland,  and  she  is  deprived  of  the  power  to 
impose  protective  duties."  It  was  these  things  the  Union 
imposed  on  Ireland.  "  Don't  unite  with  us,  sir,"  says  Dr. 
Samuel  Johnston,  when  addressed  upon  the  subject  in  his  day  ; 
"  we  shall  rob  you." 

In  the  very  first  year  this  Union  was  fixed  Mr.  Forster 
stated  in  the  English  house  of  Parliament  there  was  a  falling 
off  of  5,000,000  yards  in  the  export  of  linen.  The  same  gen- 
tleman, three  years  later,  said  that,  in  1800,  the  net  produce 
of  the  Irish  revenue  was  £2,000,800,  while  the  debt  was  £25,- 
000,000.  Three  years  later,  after  three  years'  experience  of 
the  condition  of  things,  the  debt  had  increased  to  £53,000,000, 
while  the  revenue  had  diminished  by  £1 1,000.  Ireland  was  de- 
serted ;  that  absenteeism  which  was  the  curse  of  Ireland  in  the 
days  of  Swift  had  so  increased  by  that  time  that  Dublin  had 
the  appearance  of  a  deserted  city,  and  all  the  cities  of  Ireland 
became  as  places  in  a  wilderness.  At  this  very  day,  in 
Dublin,  the  Duke  of  Leinster's  city  palace  is  turned  into  a 
museum  of  Irish  industry.  Another  large  palace  has  become 
a  draper's  shop.  Tyrone  House  is  a  school-house,  and  ne 
house  of  the  Earl  of  Bective  was  pulled  down  there  a  few 
years  ago,  and  was  rebuilt  as  a  Scotch  Presbyterian  house 
for  the  people,  and  six  months  ago,  when  I  made  a  visit  to  the 
place,  I  was  surprised  to  see  the  marvellous  change  in  con- 
trasting the  present  condition  of  the  city  with  her  former 
state.  Ilcr  fashion  and  trade,  her  commercial  activity  and 
intellect,  her  enterprise  and  political  superiority  over  Eng- 
land, are  gone,  and  Ireland  may  fold  her  hands  and  sigh  over 
the  ruin  which  is  left  to  her.  And  all  this  is  the  result  of  the 
Union.  The  crumbling  of  her  liberty  and  the  ruin  of  the 
trade  of  Ireland,  the  destruction  of  her  commerce,  the  utter 


riFTB   1 


'- 


D 

! 

the  li 

... 

p  I  was  thai  ; 

with 

Sit  hVwTld  not  beillo* 

tun. 

Shy,  ma 


; 


1 1 
with  that 


98  Father  burke  s  answers  to  froupe. 

"i  wouldn't  grant  it,  your  majesty,  any  more  than  you;  it  is 
forced  from  you  and  me.  You  must  sign  this  paper,  or 
prepare  for  civil  war  and  revolution  in  Ireland."  I  regret  to 
be  obliged  to  say  it,  but  really,  my  friends,  England  never 
granted  anything  from  love,  from  a  sense  of  justice,  or  from 
any  other  motive  than  from  a  craven  fear  of*  civil  war  and 
serious  inconvenience  to  herself. 

Now,  having  arrived  at  this  point,  Mr.  Froude  glances,  in  a 
masterly  manner,  over  the  great  questions  that  have  taken 
place  since  the  day  that  emancipation  was  demanded.  He 
speaks  words  the  most  eloquent  and  compassionate  over  the 
terrible  period  of  '40  and  '47 — words  reading  which  brought 
tears  to  my  eyes,  words  of  compassion  that  he  gave  to  the 
people  who  suffered,  for  which  I  pray  God  to  bless  him  and  to 
reward  him.  lie  speaks  words  of  generous,  enlightened, 
statesman-like  sympathy  for  the  peasantry  of  Ireland,  and  for 
these  words,  Mr.  Froude,  if  you  were  an  Englishman  ten 
thousand  times  over,  1  love  you.  He  does  not  attempt  to 
speak  of  the  future  of  Ireland.  Perhaps  it  is  a  dangerous 
thing  for  me  too ;  yet  I  suppose  that  all  we  have  been  discuss- 
ing in  the  past  must  have  some  reference  to  the  future,  for 
surely  the  verdict  that  Mr.  Froude  looks  for  is  not  a  mere 
verdict  of  absolution  for  past  iniquities.  He  has  come  here, 
though  he  is  not  a  Catholic — he  has  come  to  America  like  a 
man  going  to  a  confession.  He  has  cried  out  loudly  and 
generously,  "  We  have  sinned,"  and  the  verdict  which  he 
calls  for  must  surely  regard  the  future  more  than  the  past. 
For  how,  in  the  name  of  common  sense,  can  any  man  ask  for 
a  verdict  justifying  the  rule  of  iniquity,  the  heartrending 
record  of  murder,  injustice,  fraud,  robbery,  bloodshed,  and 
wrong,  which  we  have  been  contemplating  in  company  witn 
Mr.  Froude  ?  It  must  be  for  the  future.  What  is  that  future  ] 
Well,  my  friends,  and  first  of  all  my  American  grand  jury, 
you  must  remember  that  1  am  only  a  monk,  not  a  man  of  the 
world,  and  do  not  understand  much  about  these  things.  There 
are  wiser  heads  than  mine,  and  I  will  give  you  their  opinions. 
There  is  a  particular  class  of  men  who  love  Ireland — love 
Ireland  truly  and  love  her  sincerely.  There  is  a  particular 
class  of  men  who  love  Ireland,  and  think  in  their  love  for 
Ireland  that  if  ever  she  is  to  be  freed  it  is  by  insurrection,  by 
rising  in  arms — men  who  hold  that  Ireland  is  enslaved,  if  you 
will.' 

Well,  if  the  history  which  Mr.  Froude  has  given,  and  which 
I  have  attempted  to  veview,  if  it  teaches  us  anything  it  teaches 
us,  as  Irishmen,  that   here  is  no  use  appealing  to  the  sword  or 


i'KK.  •> 

the  w  i 

of  Irishmi  a,     n>.t  th< 
lit  land  more  dearly  than   I 

on.     lint  th 
tenderly   or  •  I  do.    I  1 

America,  tin-  a Uwill  of  i: 

t.»  th 

inwortby,  I  th  them.     !'• 

I 
eompromi 
w hat  I  '1"  doI  b  lit  •■•■  ••>  : 
not  believe   in   ineurc  otionary    i 
divided  as  Irelai 

thai   Ireland  has 
future  is  t<>  be  wrought  out   in  tl 
think  with  justice  and  i 
brings  with  it  power  and  iuflw  n 
the  1 1  i -s.li  at  home  :  "Try  1 

Try   in  the 

w  ithout  which  thi 

union  can  ■  of  mind,  l*j  . 

and    urbaoil 

the   rolation 
.  bile,  they 

:i:h.     Thia 

long  a>  there  i- 
men — I  am 

birth  but   •  I 

andfl  of  her  • 

the  braifte   t  l»;it  <  I 

this  ! 

faith  1 

■  I.     And   In 


100  FATHER    BURKE  8   ANSWERS  TO   FROCDE. 

America  rises  in  wealth,  it  will  rise  in  political  influence  and 
power — the  political  influence  and  power  which  in  a  few  year3 
is  destined  to  overshadow  the  whole  world,  and  to  bring  about, 
through  peace  and  justice,  far  greater  revolutions  in  the  cause  of 
honor  and  humanity  than  have  ever  been  effected  by  the  sword. 
This  is  the  programme  of  the  better  class  of  irishmen.  1  tell 
you  candidly  to  this  programme  1  give  my  heart  and  soul. 
You  will  ask  me  about  the  separation  from  the  Crown  of  Eng- 
land. Well,  that  is  a  ticklish  question,  gentlemen.  1  dare  say 
you  remember  that  when  Charles  Edward  was  pretender  to  the 
crown  of  England  during  the*first  years  of  the  House  of  Han- 
over, there  was  a  verse  which  Jacobite  gentlemen  used  to  give  : 

"  God  bless  tbe  king,  our  noble  faith's  defender, 
Long  may  be  live,  and  down  witb  tbe  Pretender  ; 
But  wbicb  be  Pretender  and  which  be  tbe  king, 
God  bless  us  all,  that's  quite  another  thing  I" 

And  yet,  with  the  courage  of  an  old  monk  I'll  tell  you  my 
mind  upon  this  very  question.  History  tells  us  that  empires, 
like  men,  run  the  cycle  of  the  years  of  their  life,  and  then  die. 
No  matter  how  extended  their  power,  no  matter  how  naighty 
their  influence,  no  matter  how  great  their  wealth,  no  matter 
how  invincible  their  army,  the  day  will  come,  inevitable  day, 
that  brings  with  it  decay  and  disruption.  It  was  thus  with  the 
empire  of  the  Medes  and  Persians.  It  was  thus  with  the 
empire  of  the  Assyrians,  thus  with  the  Egyptians,  thus  with 
the  Greeks,  thus  with  Rome.  Who  would  ever  have  imagined, 
for  instance,  1,500  years  ago,  before  the  Goths  first  came  to 
the  walls  of  Rome — who  would  have  imagined  that  the  greatest 
power  that  was  to  sway  the  whole  Roman  Empire  would  be 
the  little  unknown  island  lying  out  in  the  Western  Ocean, 
known  only  by  having  been  conquered  by  the  Romans — the 
Ultima  T.hule,  the  Tin  Island  in  the  far  ocean.  This  was 
England.  Well,  the  cycle  of  time  has  corne  to  pass.  Now, 
my  friends,  England  has  been  a  long  time  at  the  top  of  the 
wheel.  Do  you  imagine  she  will  always  remain  there?  I  do 
not  want  to  be  one  bit  more  disloyal  than  Lord  Macaulay  ; 
and  he  describes  a  day  when  a  traveller  from  New  Zealand 
"  will  take  his  stand  on  a  broken  arch  of  Londcn  bridge  and 
sketch  the  ruins  of  St.  Paul's."  Is  the  wheel  of  England 
rising  or  is  it  falling  ?  Is  England  to-day  what  she  was  twenty 
years  ago?  England  twenty  years  ago,  in  her  first  alliance 
with  Napoleon,  had  a  finger  in  every  pie  in  Europe.  Lord 
John  Russell  and  Lord  Palmerston  were  busybodies  of  the 
first  order.     England  to-day  has  no  more  to  say  to  the  affairs 


FIFTH     l.h.-Il   HE. 

of  Europe  than 

i  am  only  talk.- 

A  .  •    .  ..    .  i: 

.•!  Europe,  and  thej  i 

I  •._  and  in  to  know  » 

of  1 .  cipher,     i  I 

Emperor  can  I 

can  Boaroel)    muster 

Englishman,  \\ ; 

■ 
This  Englishman  \\a>  loyal;  an  I  «rhj  should  I  b 
than  he  .'     England's  nai  j 
stn.  B  itish   army,  baa   written  in  a 

Ion  paper,  in  whioh  b< 
moment  the  British  rl« -•  •  t  would   I 

be  more  loj al  than  Mr.  R 

An  empire  begins  to  I 
outlying  provinces,  as   in   the   case   of  tb> 
\\  h  >  ■  n  il  abandoned  Britaii 

aii.1  Australia:  ••  <  Mi  !  take  your  Government  bil 
hands ;    I  don't   sranl    I  h    it    any 

. 

.n  into  the  field. 
clia'  9         !ly,  an  empire   is  erumblii  : 

w  hen  she  K.-uins  to  Buj  off  her  ■ 
I:        d  Empire  w hen  she  b<  gan  to  b 
1  >  her  barbari 

1  .  ttle  bill  by 

America.    .T< >hn  Bull 

!  up  his  ;  be  woul  In1 

cent.     I  *  i  i  r  An.-  rice  yoei  don't 

■ 

U!ei 

'   1  .  .  Im  Bull  |  i 

My  friends,  it  looks  • 

/'    . 

tnd  w  ill  b<   . 
the 
•  I    I.  « h  >m  she  nev<  i 

Is    Ireland,   wh 

ler  sj  mps 

h-  r  .lark   d  ■ 

the   United  Sta 


102  FATHER    BURKE'S    ANSWERS    TO    FROUDE. 

the  Omnipotent  hand  between  the  far  East  on  the  one  s  de, 
to  which  she  stretches  out  her  glorious  arms  over  the  broad 
Pacific,  while  on  the  other  side  she  sweeps  with  uplifted  hand 
over  the  Atlantic  and  touches  Europe.  A  mighty  land, 
including  in  her  ample  bosom  untold  resources  of*  every  form 
of  commercial  and  mineral  wealth;  a  mighty  land,  with  room 
for  three  hundred  millions  of  men.  The  oppressed  of  all 
the  world  over  are  flying  to  her  more  than  imperial  bosom, 
there  to  find  liberty  and  the  sacred  right  of  civil  and  religious 
freedom.  Is  there  not  reason  to  suppose  that  in  that  future 
which  we  cannot  see  to-day,  but  which  lies  before  us,  that 
America  will  be  to  the  whole  world  what  Rome  was  in  the  an- 
cient days,  what  England  was  a  few  years  ago,  the  great  store- 
house of  the  world,  the  great  ruler — pacific  ruler  by  justice  of 
the  whole  world,  her  manufacturing  power  dispensing  from 
out  her  mighty  bosom  all  the  necessaries  and  all  the  luxuries 
of  life  to  the  whole  world  around  her?  She  may  be  destined, 
and  I  believe  she  is,  to  rise  rapidly  into  that  gigantic  power 
that  will  overshadow  all  other  nations. 

When  that  conclusion  does  come  to  pass,  what  is  more 
natural  than  that  Ireland — now  1  suppose  mistress  of  her 
destinies — should  turn  and  stretch  all  the  arms  of  her 
sympathy  and  love  across  the  intervening  waves  of  the 
Atlantic  and  be  received  an  independent  State  into  the  mighty 
confederation  of  America  ?  Mind,  1  am  not  speaking  treason. 
Remember  I  said  distinctly  that  all  this  is  to  come  to  pass 
after  Macaulay's  New  Zcaland°r  has  arrived.  America  will 
require  an  emporium  for  her  European  trade,  and  Ireland  lies 
there  right  between  her  and  ^u^ope  with  her  ample  rivers  and 
vnst  harbors,  able  to  shelter  the:  vessels  and  fleets.  America 
may  require  a  great  European  s>.iehouse,  a  great  European 
hive  for  her  manufactures.  Ireland  has  enormous  water- 
power,  now  flowing  idly  to  the  sea,  but  which  will  in  the 
future  be  used  in  turning  the  wheels  set  to  these  streams  by 
American  Irish  capital  and  Irish  industry.  If  ever  that  day 
comes,  if  ever  that  union  comes,  it  will  be  no  degradation  to 
Ireland  to  join  hands  with  America,  because  America  does 
not  enslave  her  States;  she  accepts  them  on  terms  of  glorious 
equality  ;  she  respects  their  rights,  and  blesses  all  who  cast 
their  lot  with  her.  Now  I  have  done  with  this  subject  and 
with  Mr.  Froude.  I  have  one  word  to  say  before  I  retire,  and 
that  is,  if  during  the  course  of  these  five  lectures  one  single 
word  personally  offensive  to  that  distinguished  gentleman  has 
escaped  my  lips,  1  take  this  word  back  now  ;  I  apologize  to 
him  before  he  asks  me,  and  I  beg  to  assure  ""him  that  such  a 


I !     - 

But     8t 


This  book  may  be  kept 

FOURTEEN  DAYS 


A  fine  of  TWO  CENTS  will  be  charged  for  each  day 
the  book  is  kept  over  time. 

T       I 

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